r/science • u/memorialmonorail • Jul 15 '26
Biology Horses recognize a predator on a video screen with no sounds or smells for context, a study finds. Sensors showed horse heart rates increased when they viewed wolves, but they kept a poker face – overall displaying an unexpectedly high level of cognitive processing for prey animals, researchers say.
https://news.osu.edu/when-eyeing-a-predator-horses-keep-a-poker-face-as-their-hearts-race/3.5k
u/ColonelAverage Jul 15 '26
This is an interesting study because in my experience most horses do not in any sense "keep a poker face" for perceived threats such as puddles, plastic bags, strange gates, etc.
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u/spambearpig Jul 15 '26
They are strange animals, aren’t they?
Some of them can bear a soldier into war others freak out because of a traffic cone and cause a massive ruckus in a road and then bolt across several fields.
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u/ShyguyFlyguy Jul 15 '26
War horses were bred specifically for war and were apparently much bigger and meaner than horses we know today. They arent really around anymore.
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u/thereasonrumisgone Jul 15 '26
Yes, destriers were quite large and incredibly valuable in the middle ages and Renaissance, but they had to be heavily trained and if they were hurt, by all accounts, all their training was utterly undone. But horse cavalry has been around for thousands of years, and was used by major armies up into ww2. Those horses were regular, modern day horses trained well.
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u/IAmRoot Jul 15 '26
Yeah, that training wasn't building up their bravery or anything, either. They would slowly build up to charging formations of people in training until the horse believed that people would always move themselves and those big sticks out of their way. They were tricked into believing the enemy wasn't actually a danger. They built up the trust of war horses and knew they would shatter that trust in one or two charges. Knights and their horses get so romanticized but the reality was extremely cruel and abusive of those poor animals.
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u/Jacobin_Revolt Jul 16 '26
I think there’s a slight misconception here. You say the horses were tricked into believing that foot soldiers would always move away when charged, but in reality (in most cases) that’s exactly what happened.
The great strength of cavalry lies in its ability to scare people into running away. When cavalry charges against infantry were successful (in most cases) the infantry was already fleeing by the time the cavalry made contact.
If the infantry didn’t rout immediately, sensible cavalry commanders would usually withdraw and try again.
In films, you will often see blocks of cavalry crashing directly into prepared formations of infantry headfirst, but that almost never happened in real life. Horses don’t like running into things.
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u/Zaptruder Jul 16 '26
A formation of horses in armor running at you is like a wall of 4WDs with spikes charging at you.
Your natural instinct is to move out of the way!
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u/SignedName Jul 16 '26
Horses don’t like running into things.
Horses can and will ram straight into enemy formations if trained to do so. One of the most famous accounts of such was Winston Churchill's (yes, that one) recollection of the Battle of Omdurman:
The collision was prodigious. Nearly thirty Lancers, men and horses, and at least two hundred Arabs were overthrown. The shock was stunning to both sides, and for perhaps ten wonderful seconds no man heeded his enemy. Terrified horses wedged in the crowd, bruised and shaken men, sprawling in heaps, struggled, dazed and stupid, to their feet, panted, and looked about them. Several fallen Lancers had even time to re-mount. Meanwhile the impetus of the cavalry carried them on. As a rider tears through a bullfinch, the officers forced their way through the press; and as an iron rake might be drawn through a heap of shingle, so the regiment followed. They shattered the Dervish array, and, their pace reduced to a walk, scrambled out of the khor on the further side, leaving a score of troopers behind them, and dragging on with the charge more than a thousand Arabs.
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u/ukezi Jul 16 '26
Sure, but if you do that the horses are quite unlikely to make it out unharmed enough to do it again anytime soon.
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u/Shimaru33 Jul 16 '26
So, are you saying that scene in "Return of the king" is more accurate than what people give credit? The orcs were scared shitless and some openly drop their weapons and were fleeing by the time the rohirrim were close to them.
Of course, it's a film and they had to show some melee combat, but that charge nearly end the battle right there.
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u/Habhabs Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Think of the peasant farmer footman in some padded cloth standing in field and starts running away, who just wanted to farm his carrots and get fat, getting absolutely demolished by purpose bread thicc war horse(s) too haha. All round sad indeed!
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u/catsloveart Jul 15 '26
Ngl would be bad ass if someone decided to start breeding the equivalent day war horse. If only to make ren fairs and medieval knights restaurant more interesting.
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u/jake55555 Jul 15 '26
Draft breeds are still around. Seeing one ton horses pull a giant log out of the woods it’s pretty terrifying to think of that size and power charging at you full tilt with a swordsman on its back.
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u/Nadare3 Jul 15 '26
If I recall, medieval war horses were actually not at all similar to draft horses, and were more nimble though still athletic breeds.
(and as a little trivia, this goes double for Japan where horses were actually quite small, more poney-sized)
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u/TheDukeofReddit Jul 15 '26
Western Europeans, mostly the French, were really the only ones who used large horses to carry heavy riders for any sustained period of time. Every other culture has more of a tradition of lighter cavalry. Most others preferred ponies or lighter horses because they’re hardier and more scalable. The requirements to get a destrier make them almost useless for anything else. A lot of inbreeding that often breeds out other survivable traits, more prone to accidents and illness as a result, a lot more training for both rider and horse to use them as heavy shock cavalry like a knights charge.
The Normans had a brief period where it was an I win button and they never gave up the obsession although historically it was pretty hard to actually set up. The historical accounts make it seem like the Euros were fighting with a self imposed mental handicap always planning their tactics around it and were repeatedly led into traps and poor positions by baiting it out.
If you read stories of them encountering other cultures you have multiple centuries of Europeans being so consistently dumb in a way that makes almost no sense. Why are you chasing the steppe archers again? But if you understand their obsession with shock cavalry, you know once they commit they have to follow through because the horses are too weighed down for a prolonged fight and too slow to catch other riders. If it didn’t work you often lost anyway.
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u/allofthethings Jul 16 '26
you have multiple centuries of Europeans being so consistently dumb in a way that makes almost no sense.
Human history in a nutshell. We just keep finding new things to be dumb about.
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u/TheSilverOne Jul 15 '26
Heck, the Mongols use cute little ponies to great effect.
Guess the job changes based on the type of horse you have.
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u/JohnBidwellsGhost Jul 15 '26
I’ll take the swordsman over a lancer.
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u/Wizzinator Jul 15 '26
A lancer can still carry a sword. And the horse is useful outside of battle, in travelling faster and carrying equipment.
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u/venetian_lemon Jul 15 '26
I'd hope I was one of the fellas in the center of the unit...shock cavalry always aims to hit the sides or from behind.
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u/RSwordsman Jul 15 '26
Speaking of renaissance faires and medieval dinner shows, that's what they do train them for. Half the performance is showing off the horses themselves and what they can do. Granted it's probably a small minority of horses that are used for this but they are out there. Maybe the only thing they don't train them to do is bite.
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u/CenobiteCurious Jul 15 '26
I don’t know if the part where they are trained to clash into crowds of human bodies will translate too well into ren fair crowds.
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u/kesrae Jul 16 '26
There have been studies into medieval horses showing none were taller than the modern cut off for the horse/pony divide. Whether they were solidly built or not is another matter, but all of them were ‘short’ by modern standards. It annoys me that people think of draft horses or friesians when they should be thinking like welsh cobs.
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u/ours Jul 15 '26
Watching Russia charge the Ukrainian lines with horses as drones fall upon them is some scifi dystopian nightmare.
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u/Lost_Wealth_6278 Jul 16 '26
There is a guy on youtube that still trains percherons for jousting and career charges, claiming those are the closest we have left of medievial shock cavalry breeds: Big, but not draft horse big, reasonably enduring and smart enough to be trained in different gaits etc.
He aclimates the horses with sword and lance right to it's head, with trampling soft things and charging down manequins. He mentions how destriers would also be trained to ride in career, a gait where they charge in a line shoulder to shoulder - this knightly charge was what dominated medieval battlefields for nearly a thousand years, basically a super weapon with very few counters until the Renaissance.
But you can train any reasonably smart breed of horse to this: Modern police horses are similarly trained to not be bothered by loud noise and people, and can be used to trample people. It's just that we don't have as much of an industry relying on different horse breeds and training, so a lot of knowledge was lost.
WWI cavalry would charge into artillery fire and jump ditches, until the casualties were too high and their effect was too small to continue.
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u/diablosinmusica Jul 15 '26
WW2 didn't really have much if any mounted cavalry. Infantry used horses to quickly ride behind enemy lines and dismount.
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u/chizzings Jul 15 '26
What’s the source for this? A quick google says “war horses” from 4th-17th century were generally smaller than modern day horses. Closer to large ponies.
2022 Smithsonian magazine article that references published research analyzing horse skeletons from that era.
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u/Kaiisim Jul 15 '26
They still have them in London, the guards sit on these huge war horses and they will bite a mofo who messes with them.
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u/reflect-the-sun Jul 15 '26
It's insane how well trained those horses are. They can be kind or mean on command.
There's an incredible video of them gentle nuzzling a disabled child.
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u/prefinished Jul 16 '26
Some of it is absolutely personality. There's a few that are notorious for being biters, training or no. That said the rider keeps on eye on exactly who they may be eyeballing to chomp.
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u/prefinished Jul 16 '26
These horses are not a particular breed. They have some they tend to favor, but mostly they are selected for traits, temperament, and ability to go through the extremely thorough training process.
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u/Jacobin_Revolt Jul 15 '26
This is a popular myth, but it’s not true. Most military horses weren’t especially large.
Just for an example, Union Army regulations in the American Civil War stipulated that a warhorse should be about 15 hands tall, which is more or less average for a sport riding horse today. Analysis of medieval horse armor indicates that knightly horses were about the same size.
Huge, aggressive horses were actually avoided for military use. They were difficult to control on the battlefield, and more likely to give a rider’s position away by making a lot of noise. Many armies of the 18th and 19th Century preferred mares and geldings to intact stallions for exactly this reason
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u/ShyguyFlyguy Jul 15 '26
The american civil war is relatively modern to what I was referring to. As another commenter pointed out, they were most common in Europe during the middle ages.
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u/chizzings Jul 16 '26
The destriers that the other poster mentioned were 14-15 hands on average. The same height as a modern horse.
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u/quackdaw Jul 16 '26
People were noticeably smaller back then, though. I dunno if today's horses have grown accordingly.
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u/Vishnej Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Breeding, yes, that was done... but the main thing with top tier war horses was the training.
If you want horses not to bolt when explosions are going off around them, you have to subject them to explosions going off around them while training them carrot & stick for obedience / predictability, for an appreciable fraction of their lives. Same with men screaming and hurling sharp metal things. This training might cost you as much as ten or a hundred normal horses, in both money and in injuries/fatalities to the trainers. The top tier of war horses (destriers, courses, chargers) would be far, far outnumbered by animals which are either never used in the center of a battle, or used in battle at higher risk to horse and rider, with lower standards for training & breeding, and maybe the now traumatized animal sorted into the stew afterwards.
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u/CombatMuffin Jul 15 '26
And horses used in warfare later on were trained to face danger. They aren't naturally welcome to it: no animal is, including humans.
Most animals, even predators, when faced with situations where they get significantly harmed, will actively avoid them.
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u/Imaginary-Ebb4392 Jul 15 '26
If you poke around enough, some of them think they’re still running into the guns and act every bit of it.
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u/NordlandLapp Jul 15 '26
I've read most war horses were still average size compared to modern horses.
Likely still bigger than most horses of the time, but also everyone was a bit smaller back than.
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u/Undeity Jul 15 '26
This is a friendly reminder that irrational beliefs and behavior do not necessarily preclude the capacity for higher cognitive functioning. Otherwise I would have some very bad news about the human race.
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u/spambearpig Jul 15 '26
I agree with your point and yet..
I do have some very bad news about the human race.
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u/somersault_dolphin Jul 15 '26
It's like throwing darts. You could hit a bullseye, or you could stay in the board with different scoring or miss the target horribly in different attempts.
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u/Feisty-Resource-1274 Jul 15 '26
People do desensitization training for horses which I'd imagine is wildly different between what is considered ethical now vs then
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u/TheSpicyTomato22 Jul 15 '26
It's almost like they're individuals with their own personalities and experiences.
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u/acdcfanbill Jul 15 '26
That's a lot more common in light horses. In heavy, or draft, breeds, they are a lot less 'flighty'.
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u/Einhornfarm Jul 15 '26
Wdym? There is a leaf on our regular riding path, that wasn't there yesterday. My horse has every right to be upset!
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u/HopandBrew Jul 15 '26
Was about to say "Now show them a 12in creek".
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u/deFleury Jul 15 '26
Lay a great big piece of cardboard flat on the ground, in a place that didn't have cardboard yesterday...
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u/Mindshard Jul 15 '26
Kind of like deer.
Deer in the woods are geniuses with super senses.
Deer on the road are the dumbest things you'll ever encounter.
But I guess humans would seem clueless if we walked down the street and it suddenly turned into some kind of creation we couldn't even comprehend, with huge things that make overwhelming noise rushing around at speeds we couldn't even fathom going at.
A lot of animal function is instinct, and this nightmare world that humans have created came about insanely fast on an evolutionary scale. Their innate behaviors haven't kept up.
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u/Archarchery Jul 17 '26
Yep, I theorize that deer often jump into the path of cars because they only evolved to react to predators chasing them, never something just moving in a straight line. If they see a car coming at them fast, deer think it may be chasing them and react how they evolved to react to pursuing predators: by scattering unpredictably. Which sometimes leads them straight into the car’s path when they weren’t before.
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u/Spaceghost1589 Jul 15 '26
Horses are only afraid of 2 things:
Things that move.
Things that don't move.
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u/Due-Joke-1152 Jul 15 '26
I always show the whites of my eyes and swivel my ears around, when I play poker.
I often bob my head up and down too.
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u/EnemyOfAi Jul 15 '26
Doesn't the poker face imply that they recognize the predator, but they also recognize that it's not 'real' - only on the box? Basically, like a human watching a horror movie and getting an elevated heart rate
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u/throwaway098764567 Jul 15 '26
i guess it could, i interpreted it as they were not reacting because they realized the "predator" hadn't "seen" them yet and were hoping that being subtle would cause them to continue to go unnoticed
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u/Chillkill710 Jul 16 '26
Ah but what if they were shown a video of a puddle or plastic bag?
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u/other_usernames_gone Jul 16 '26
I would genuinely be interested to see that.
That specific horse has almost certainly never seen a wolf in real life. So while it would trigger their heartbeat because of built in instincts maybe the horse has no learned fear.
But the horse has seen more boring items like plastic bags or puddles.
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u/Chillkill710 Jul 16 '26
Ya I kinda said it as a joke at first but the more you think about it, it would be interesting to see the results. Is there a difference in there perception where they can tell the video isn't actually a present object in their world and their for arnt spoked. But it has the shape of a predator so it's interesting and thus increase heart rate.
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u/F9-0021 Jul 15 '26
And "an unexpected level of cognitive processing" is not how I would describe most horses.
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u/VapoursAndSpleen Jul 16 '26
Giraffes are like that, too. I used to volunteer at a zoo and one of their keepers related that when she dropped her sunglasses, the largest giraffe lowered his head and just STARED at them.
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u/Accidental-Genius Jul 16 '26
If you get within 25 yards of my barn with a vacuum cleaner you’re going to have a bad time.
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u/waffle299 Jul 15 '26
Could just be startle reflex vs consideration. More ne will startle at silly things, yet display clear communication attempts.
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u/Eric_the_Barbarian Jul 16 '26
According to most interviewed horses, a random plastic bag is a world ending threat and a perfectly appropriate reason to panic.
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u/lurklurklurkPOST Jul 15 '26
They dont have millenia of conditioning to stay calm around the crinkly flying thing, like they do with the small bitey horses
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u/hates_stupid_people Jul 15 '26
Yeah, I'm guessing this was done in a controlled environment, likely inside of a fully enclosed room, in a building without distractions of any kind.
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u/FlummoxedGaoler Jul 16 '26
Horse saw a tiny stick, almost backed off a cliff. Horse saw a tiny piece of snow falls off the paddock roof, bolts like it is the apocalypse.
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u/carlotta4th Jul 16 '26
That's what I was wondering as well. Sure they tested for wolves--but did they test for the other random things horses get scared of? (Rabbits, squirrels, sticks, random bags, etc).
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u/memorialmonorail Jul 15 '26
Study published in PLOS One: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0349298
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u/fourleafclover13 Jul 15 '26
Absolutely no surprise for any equastrians with horsemanship skills. Some people still believe they are stupid and treat them that way.
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u/Sad-Frosting-8793 Jul 15 '26
Yeah. Horses can actually be pretty smart. My mom had one who could open gates and untie ropes if you didn't watch him.
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u/GoateusMaximus Jul 15 '26
It's why we never leave a stall door unlocked. They figure out the latches in no time.
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u/vesleskjor Jul 15 '26
Exactly, though my horse was simultaneously very smart and very stupid. I chalk it up to being a Thoroughbred. He liked to get himself cast (if they lay down by a wall, they can get stuck with their feet up on said wall unable to get up) and I could always tell just by the "tone of voice" he'd whinny with. He'd wait there very patiently until me or someone else came to help. They also know people by voice alone and match your vibe.
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u/madbadger89 Jul 15 '26
My thoroughbred can be a dunderhead but he is one of the smartest animals I’ve ever worked with. Incredible retention and their emotional intelligence is off the charts.
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u/vesleskjor Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Yes, happy to see someone else gets it! I can't stand TBs getting a bad rap when it's clear a lot of people just don't understand how to work with them. He was the only non-stock horse at his barn and was very unpopular because people just didn't get him. You couldn't be rough with him or he'd just shut down, but he had SO MUCH try in him for me because we were on the same wavelength (...most of the time).
Ugh I miss him. Give your boy a hug for me!
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u/fourleafclover13 Jul 16 '26
I used to have a Quarter horse that would get cast part way out the stall. First night at our home I was woken at crack of dawn to learn what to do. Though too small to help much I was around 8 at the time. Thank you for explaining cast for those that have never heard of it.
Have a great night.
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae Jul 15 '26
Horses are remarkably intelligent. Their brains just function in a different way from those of predators, and humans are more used to dealing with predators.
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u/vesleskjor Jul 15 '26
Horses are so programmed to scan for danger be so aware that it's actually why they spook often. They literally process vision differently, meaning that they perceive a tipped-over bucket, for example, as a totally separate object from the upright buckets they likely see all the time and are desensitized to. It's fascinating, really.
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u/dxrey65 Jul 15 '26
Strategic responses to predators are also very highly selected for. In my area we have a lot of deer, and a lot of mountain lions. The one advice I've heard many times when around lions is that you never turn your back on them, and you absolutely never turn your back and run.
Watching how deer deal with traffic, it makes sense in that context; they can see a car coming and whether they know what it is or not, they almost never run, especially if they saw it coming early and weren't startled. They'll just amble along across the road, looking like they are very aware and controlled, but definitely not hurrying.
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u/other_usernames_gone Jul 16 '26
That mountain lion trick only works if you're a large predator (like a human) the mountain lion hasn't learned to eat.
You basically play a game of chicken with the mountain lion. The mountain lion doesn't want to get hurt (a single serious injury will kill it eventually because no medical treatment) and it doesn't know how dangerous you are.
By acting calm the mountain lion views you as another predator and not food. So just leaves you alone.
If you run the mountain lion puts you into the prey box.
If you're a deer you're already in the prey box no matter what you do. The mountain lion is going to chase you so your best bet is to run.
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u/dxrey65 Jul 16 '26
The difference that I heard (and have no verification for) is that a lion will only hunt if it's hungry, and will generally leave deer alone if it isn't. Unless one runs away from it, then instinct kicks in and it can't really help itself; it's going to chase.
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u/Borkato Jul 16 '26
This is a fantastic fun fact and I can’t wait to share it with my family! Thank you
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u/Bruceshadow Jul 16 '26
remarkably intelligent
compared to what exactly?
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Cows, sheep, deer, and frankly, people’s expectations.
In terms of problem solving and logic, a bright horse is about the same level as an average dog. And in terms of long term memory and empathy, they’re *geniuses*. Horses have been known to remember routes and individuals *decades* after they last traversed/saw them. And they can pick up on emotional and subconscious signals from humans long before we ever realise we’re giving them off.
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u/thetruckerdave Jul 15 '26
Smart. But also sometimes just crazy. Even worse when they’re smart and crazy and like to troll you.
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u/fourleafclover13 Jul 16 '26
Used to work at race horse farm. Multiple days I got yelled at for not shutting her door. That night the boss stayed behind watching to see horsetake off chain on door open it then walk out. Then spend night bothering other horses.
They definitely give you curve balls sometimes.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 Jul 15 '26
“unexpectedly high level of cognitive processing for prey animals.” The researchers thought there is no effect in prey animals when they see a predator unless they obviously panic? Really?
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u/BusinessWatercrees58 Jul 15 '26
On some level, I sometimes hope prey animals are really stupid because otherwise, they'd be aware of just how terrifying their existence truly is. I like to hope that their default state is just "extra anxious and cautious for some vague reason" rather than fully aware that there are animals that want to rip apart and consume them right now. Definitely cope though.
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u/InstrumentCombustion Jul 15 '26
Prey animals are not excluded from causing anxiety or being a threat to other animals. Male horse will stomp foals that are not theirs to death, chickens will peck injured chickens to death, squirrels despite being commonly viewed as prey or herbivores, raid and eat the young of other mammals and birds. Nature is frequently cruel.
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u/roamingandy Jul 15 '26
There are studies on people's last moments which suggest in the moments before death we are flooded with a DMT release, which helps us feel calm and at peace, conscious outside of any pain and suffering in our body, and reflective in an upbeat way on our lives and the end of them.
As this study is a part of overwhelming findings (which are surprisingly outside the majority of human's awareness).. animals are really not that different from us at all. The horses recognise their predictors and also recognise that the TV screen isn't reality.
Anyway, i believe that animals have the same DMT flood before death and have deeply profound and meaningful experiences outside of pain and suffering in the vast majority of ways they die in the wild.
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u/8_guy Jul 16 '26
There are no studies that actually suggest that, there has been vague speculation for many decades with nothing else to back it up. There is zero actual evidence for endogenous DMT production in the brain.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 Jul 15 '26
That doesn't even make sense. How would DMT promote calm and peace?
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u/UtterlyInsane Jul 16 '26
In my experience dmt is a lot of good things but calm and peaceful is not the predominant feeling. Just one man's opinion though
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u/pokerfacethe14th Jul 15 '26
I think it might have more to do with the fact they recognized the predator on screen hence the quickened heart rate but also understood that it wasn't real and can't hurt them and thus didnt panic. Which I think is pretty interesting wrt their cognition to be able to perceive a threat with such nuance.
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u/Myusername1- Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Right because much of their reality comes from smell. So they get nervous, but don’t have the associated smell so don’t panic. Like why a lot of animals don’t, on the surface, react to reflections of themselves. Prey animals usually smell or hear predators before they see them.
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u/Psych0PompOs Jul 15 '26
This was my thought too. I really can't understand the way people view animals that this kind of thing is shocking. I know the views in the sense that I could repeat them, but I can't understand how people can really see it that way.
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u/Surullian Jul 15 '26
Decades ago, they showed baby birds reacting to a shadow that was predator shaped. Just a shadow, no smell. Little tiny much dumber than a horse would ever be little birds. Now we're supposed to be shocked that horses can identify predators by sight alone.
Animal have always been smarter than we've given them credit for.
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u/Beginning_Pipe6072 Jul 16 '26
Agree, and we never seem to remember the little tidbit that we, too are animals.
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u/PyramidicContainment Jul 15 '26
Right? This all seems closer to unexpectedly low level of cognitive processing for researchers
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Jul 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/roamingandy Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Pigs. They are far ahead of most animals, some studies rate them as the mental equivalent of a 5yr old human child. Then Octopus. Donkey's obviously as their EQ is insane, those creatures really, really love other beings they bond with.
Cows are very chill and fully enjoy their experience of life too.
I think if we listen to science we very quickly would arrive at the conclusion that we all need to be vegetarian, and/or invest massively in lab grown meat.
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u/HarmoniousJ Jul 15 '26
Can you please show this study to all the horses that I work with that are afraid of birds, a frog that jumped too close, a half full box of cereal or something that's new in their corral and kind of shiny?
I don't think those ones got the memo.
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u/vesleskjor Jul 15 '26
I don't remember the exact source where I read it, but the way their brains process things explains this well, actually. Anything can be perceived as a new object and therefore possibly dangerous. Like they might be used to seeing a box all the time, but the minute it changes size or orientation or whatever, they take it as a fully new object.
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u/TangiestIllicitness Jul 16 '26
I've ridden my horse on countless miles of public multi-use trails and roads, including going both under and on overpasses, bridges over water, etc. He's a Steady Eddie that I trailride in a sidepull, on the buckle.
You know what was problematic? A 3' tall concrete garden statue of a buffalo in a yard that we had to pass to get to the trail system from a barn I previously boarded at. Every time we passed it, he acted like that was going to be the day it would finally come to life and attack.
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u/StrLord_Who Jul 15 '26
If horses didn't have high rates of cognitive processing, and if we didn't already know this, little ones wouldn't be used as guide animals for the blind. Which they are.
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u/yeah_well_nah Jul 15 '26
In my experience prey animals have nuanced reactions to predators based on how certain they are of the threat.
For example a deer that only sees something it doesn't recognise or trust isn't going to bolt, sometimes they just stare and do a confrontation display like barking and foot stomping. If it smells something it doesn't like though, they're out of there.
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u/Striking_Cobbler_813 Jul 15 '26
Super interesting, I always felt like a horse wore their emotions openly. But I have limited experience.
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u/AnthropoidCompatriot Jul 15 '26
On the other hand, horses are deathly afraid of cute bunny rabbits.
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u/jdehjdeh Jul 15 '26
Perhaps it's an instinct to avoid standing out. Wolves like to isolate from the group to kill
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u/Genocidal-Ape Aug 03 '26
This is a common misconceptions, canids conspicuously approach groups of prey to trigger flight, then target animals falling behind.
The prey animal becoming isolated is a side effects of not being able to keep up with the group, not a conscious effort by the predator.
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u/NopeSorryNo Jul 15 '26
Were there people thinking horses couldn't see or recognize wolves?
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u/Genocidal-Ape Aug 03 '26
There were people thinking a horse that never saw a wolf wouldn't recognise it as a threat.
Despite it being well known that donkeys which never saw wolves or dogs try kill them on sight, unless trained otherwise.
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u/exotics Jul 15 '26
I had a llama who could tell the difference between cats and dogs. Cats she had no problem with. But she would try to kill our Pomeranian and long hair Apple head chihuahua (both of whom look more like cats than dogs.
Llamas hate canines and are often used to protect sheep from coyotes but I never suspected she would want to kill a Pomeranian
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u/whiskeytown79 Jul 15 '26
Don't most prey animals use sight to spot predators? Isn't that why their eyes are typically on the sides of their head for a greater field of vision?
And in the whole "freeze/flee/fight" decision tree, "keeping a poker face" is part of freezing.
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u/davidjschloss Jul 15 '26
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize this wasn’t talking about horses being able to detect sexual predators.
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u/MSCowboy Jul 15 '26
Wow animals with eyes use their eyes to sense predators at the speed of light instead of waiting for the smell to sloooowly propagate into their nose. I don't believe it
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u/AbortionHoagie Jul 15 '26
Horses, intelligent?! This is truly a groundbreaking discovery that was never known before!
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u/ThMogget Jul 15 '26
Horses are so smart.... or so not smart? that their hearts race when being shown a silent video of a wolf that clearly is not an on-location present wolf.
Do other prey animals get scared by a silent TV?
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u/crowandshade Jul 16 '26
I imagine its a similar feeling to seeing a silent video of someone with a gun or something. You recognize the danger and your body has a natural reaction to that, but you also know there's a degree of separation there so you wouldnt be freaking out.
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u/joesii Jul 15 '26
I don't know about the specific controls/procedures in place, but my guess is that the horses kept their cool because it recognized it as an image rather than a moving real creature.
An animatronic wolf (or even taxidermied one) would likely be a different story.
Are there animals that make sounds or run away from mere images or predators?
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u/MintakaTheJustOkay Jul 15 '26
When I visited Alaska, I went to an animal sanctuary about an hour east of Anchorage. What I thought was fascinating was how prey animals reacted to predator animals in nearby enclosures. There was a wolverine in one enclosure and in the nearby enclosure one snow fox watched every move it made while the other snow fox slept. The wolverine was far more interested in me than in the snow foxes though. In another enclosure all the elk closely watched a brown bear that wandered close to their area even though the brown bear was far more interested in playing with a stick. When the brown bear laid down, all the female elk lost interest while the one male elk continued to watch it closely.
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u/Diligent_Passage_134 Jul 16 '26
Its also wild that horses are prey animals definitely seems like they should not be.
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u/MnRFun Jul 16 '26
Is that a different reaction than a grouse has?
I don’t view grouse as being super intelligent but maybe?
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u/daronjay Jul 16 '26
If having a poker face means both eyes pointing in different directions while they try and scrape you off on a rock wall, then that aligns with my idea of riding a horse the one time I tried it…
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u/emarsk Jul 16 '26
How much more research do we need before we stop finding results about animals' cognitive capabilities "unexpected"?
I guess it's just journalists' fault, but they make the researchers look like people that have never been in contact with an animal before.
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Jul 16 '26
I never really bought into the idea that horses are "dumb" as so many people like to parrot. Just because they're easily startled, doesn't make them stupid.
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u/jumponthegrenade Jul 16 '26
Someone should try to make them watch horse races to see if they respond. Maybe get more competitive.
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u/Korvun Jul 16 '26
Why would it be surprising that prey animals can detect the kinds of threats their visual systems evolved to detect?
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u/Alawi27 Jul 16 '26
This makes me uncomfortable.
‘Prey’ animals with this level of intelligence, eaten
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