As of: March 19, 2024, 8:13 a.m
By: Lara-Sabrina Kiehl
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A sheep from Indonesia discovers a competitor and feels challenged by him.
However, the four-legged friend misses an important detail.
When animals see themselves in the mirror, they react in different ways: some are frightened, others are a little skeptical about what they see, and some simply don't react to their reflection at all.
But as a sheep shows, there is another way to react to your own reflection in the mirror - namely quite aggressively.
Video captures sheep mistaking his own reflection for an enemy
As a video shows, sheep probably can't recognize themselves in the mirror.
(Symbolic image) © Panthermedia/Imago
Even though sheep are anything but stupid, they don't seem to recognize their own reflection.
At least one sheep from Indonesia did.
By chance it discovers itself on a reflective surface, but thinks its counterpart is a rather rebellious enemy who stares provocatively.
A cat also looks strangely at its own reflection, making countless TikTok users laugh.
The sheep stands face to face with its hostile reflection.
True to the motto “You’re cheeky.
“I’ll show you,” it then reacts with several courageous attacks and repeatedly bangs its head against the mirrored goal.
A sheep on TikTok inspires with a special training video that many users even think is better than a dog.
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Sheep have very good memories and can recognize herd members in pictures
But anyone who thinks that the even-toed ungulates are stupid just because the sheep is fighting with its own reflection is wrong.
For example, sheep's memory isn't that bad.
Researchers have found that sheep can remember over 50 faces of their own species over several years and can even distinguish between people.
The report appeared in the British specialist magazine “
Nature
”.
In addition, later experiments showed that the animals could also distinguish sheep's faces when they were shown them in different configurations or from a different perspective.
The animals' behavior also showed that they can recognize absent herd members in pictures.
Only after about two years did the memory of the conspecifics fade and the animals increasingly made mistakes in recognition.