Sheep Smarter than Thought
London—S
heep, like turkeys and ostriches, are not considered the most clever animals. British scientists said last Wednesday humans may have underestimated the woolly creature. They could be much smarter than we think.
Researchers at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, southern England, have shown that the animals have a good memory system and are extremely good at recognizing faces—which they think is a sure sign of intelligence.
Behavioral scientist Keith Kendrick and his friends trained 20 sheep to recognize and distinguish 25 pairs of sheep faces and used electrodes (电极) to measure their brain activity , which showed they could remember 50 faces for up to two years .
“If they can do that with faces, they have to have reasonable intelligence; otherwise, what is the point of having a system for remembering faces and not remembering anything else?” Kendrick said in an interview.
So hours of seemingly mindless eating grass may not be so mindless after all.
Kendrick believes sheep got their reputation as dumb (unable to speak, unintelligent) animals because they live in large groups and do not appear to have much individuality and are frightened of just about everything.
“All animals, including humans, once they are frightened, don’t tend to show signs of intelligent action,” he explained.
In research reported in the science journal Nature, Kendrick and his team showed that sheep, like humans, have a specialized system in the brain which allows them to distinguish between many different faces which look extremely similar.
“The most important finding (of the study) is that they are able , both from a behavioral point of view and from looking at the way the brain is organized , to remember a large number of individuals for a very long time,” said Kendrick. “It is a very strange system. They are showing similar abilities in many ways to humans.”
小题1:From the first paragraph we can find that______. .
A．people used to think sheep are smarter than the other animals
B．people used to raise sheep in a wrong way
C．people don’t consider sheep as clever animals
D．people have done a lot of research on sheep小题2:From what Kendrick said in the interview we learn that_____. .
A．scientists have learned everything about sheep’s intelligence
B．scientists have learned a little about sheep’s intelligence
C．scientists can’t do anything more about sheep’s memory
D．scientists do not have to research animals’ memory小题3:As is known in the passage,__________.
A．sheep are among the week animals
B．it is not right for people to raise sheep in groups
C．when sheep eat grass in the field their minds may be active
D．if people feel frightened, they may become braver
