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The facial expressions of horses are more varied than those of chimpanzees and dogs. And humans are indeed “a bit of a horse” because our facial muscles work in a similar way.
These noble animals, sung by poets and artists, have been accompanying man for five thousand years, but only now have researchers begun to study the “facial expressions” of horses in order to better understand their emotional states.
Ethologists from the University of Sussex (UK) have compiled a catalog of “facial expressions” of one of the most ancient four-legged friends of man. They identified 17 different expressions that can show mood, intentions, or just stubbornness.
This is at least three more than found in chimpanzees and one more than in dogs. Of course, all of them are far from a person, he has 27 ways to express his thoughts without words – with lips, eyes or, for example, wrinkling his nose.
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- Good relationship with horses
“It was known that horses have better eyesight than cats and dogs, but their “facial expressions” have so far been little studied. We were surprised by the sheer variety of facial expressions in horses, and the similarity of a considerable part of their facial expressions with the human, – says lead author of the study Jennifer Watham (Jennifer Watham). “Despite the differences in the structure of the human face and the horse’s muzzle, we were able to identify similar expressive movements of the lips and eyes. Now we have to find out what emotional states these expressions correspond to.
Jennifer Watham and colleagues dissected the head of a medically euthanized horse for research purposes in order to find, sketch and photograph all elements of the facial musculature. In addition, they recorded about 15 hours of video surveillance of the natural behavior of 86 horses, stallions and mares of a wide variety of breeds, ranging in age from 4 weeks to 27 years. Horses were looked for in shelters, riding schools, on farms. As a result, the researchers compiled a map of all possible horse “grimaces and smirks.”
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- What animals teach us
During the ice ages – from 2,5 million to 12 thousand years ago – wild horses grazed in Europe, Asia and North America. They were originally hunted for their meat, but around 5000 years ago the horse was domesticated. By the middle of the XNUMXth century, the species Equus ferus had become extinct in the wild. Horses have played an important role in the history of mankind – just think of the cavalry or the measurement of horsepower. They served as draft, agricultural, hunting animals. Thanks to horses, one of the oldest types of gambling arose – betting on horse races.
New research helps to better understand how horses look at their riders and people in general. “Both humans and horses can raise their upper eyelids, which usually corresponds to negative emotional states,” explains Jennifer Watham. “Another example: horses can pull in the corners of their lips, which seems to show submission. In our catalog, we have so far only identified all the possible expressions of the “face” of the horse. Now we have to figure out the context for each of them. Then we can more reasonably compare their facial expressions and ours.
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- What is left of animals in us?
Horses are known to be social animals. It is likely that their behavior has evolved so that family groups stay together during seasonal migrations in search of new sources of food, as well as to warn each other of the threat of predators. Perhaps this explains the wide range of expressions of their “faces”.
“It used to be that the less an animal has in common with a person, the more primitive facial expressions it uses. Our work shows that this is not always true. Horses, with their complex and flexible social system, have a rich set of different facial expressions, many of which are similar to those of other animals and humans. A growing body of evidence suggests that social factors had a significant impact on the evolution of facial expressions,” says study co-author Karen McComb, a professor of animal behavior at the University of Sussex.
Подробнее см. J. Wathan et al. «EquiFACS: The equine facial action coding system», PLOS One, August 2015.