Farmyard Fridays #4: The goats knew you were trouble

It seems goats are the animals of the moment, particularly when placed alongside Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus in a youtube cut of a music video. Whilst Farmyard Fridays hates to jump on a bandwagon, I’ve always liked goats ever since inventing the Goat Appreciation Society to help pad out a mock CV at school. This is mainly because of the simple fact that goats are awesome, something newcomers to the caprine world (that’s a fact for free: goats are described as caprine) will probably largely fail to recognise.

There are many many facts about goats which are frankly fascinating and there may be many a Farmyard Friday about them. Farmyard Friday Fact #4, however, is especially illuminating.

Many people say goats have evil eyes, but whilst this is not only caprinist, it is also likely based upon a lack of understanding of what is precisely so amazing about goats’ eyes. Perhaps this picture will illustrate.

 

Goats, unlike humans, have rectangular pupils. This seems completely alien to us: how often in nature do you see something this particular shape? It can make goats look quite beady-eyed and strange, and everybody knows how what we don’t understand can seem frightening. But there is a perfectly brilliant reason for this, and, like pigs not being able to look up (Farmyard Fridays Fact #1), it’s based upon the relative need for goats to see their predators.

Goats are a sub-section of the antelope family, and like antelopes, would once have been prey to carnivorous mammals such as wolves and coyotes. Indeed, in certain places in the world, domestic goats are still pursued by these predators. Therefore goats need to be able to see all around them with as much ease as possible. The rectangular pupils allow 320-340 degree vision – almost an entire circle. Additionally, the pupils can contract to a far smaller size during the day due to this shape, and so therefore can dilate much further at night, allowing for extremely accurate night vision. Both these factors allow goats to detect predators more than an animal with round pupils.

This is purely one thing which makes goats awesome; Farmyard Fridays will return to this humble creature one day in the future.

But for now this is Farmyard Fridays Fact #4: Goats have rectangular pupils.

This excellent vision fully allows goats to know you were trouble when you walked in.