Horses have more sense than many people realise, according to scientists who have shown the animals are able to communicate with one another by moving their eyes and ears.
A study has found that domestic horses are aware of the direction in which other horses are concentrating by looking at the gaze of their eyes and the position in which their ears are pointing.
Other animals, such as monkeys and apes with forward-pointing eyes, are also known to follow the gaze of other individuals. But this is the first time researchers have shown that the ability is shared by a "prey" species with eyes on the sides of its head, the scientists said.
It is also the first time that researchers have shown that animals with wiggly ears are able to use these movements to see what another individual is concentrating on, Jennifer Wathan, of the University of Sussex, said.
She carried out the research with her PhD supervisor, Karen McComb. "Our study is the first to examine a potential cue to attention that humans do not have - the ears," Wathan said.
"Previous work investigating communication of attention in animals has focused on cues that humans use [such as] head orientation and eye gaze.
"However, we found that in horses their ear position was also a crucial visual signal that other horses respond to."
The paper is published in the journal Current Biology.
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