Curated playlist
Livestock
- PigPigs do not sweat to cool down. Their only sweat glands of one type sit on the snout.
- SheepSheep can remember the faces of fifty other sheep for over two years. A 2001 study in Nature found it.
- HorseWhy can a horse sleep standing up yet collapse if it never lies down? Deep REM sleep requires lying down.
- GoatGoats are the only ruminant that regularly climbs trees. They also have slit-shaped pupils and no tear ducts.
- LivestockThe word livestock was coined between 1650 and 1660, when English speakers joined "live" and "stock."
- PoultryThe earliest chickens may have been kept for fighting, not food. Domestication dates to around 8,000 years ago.
- StableThe oldest known horse stables were built for Ramesses II in ancient Egypt. They could shelter around 480 horses.
- GrazingGrazing is older than cities, writing and fixed fields. Sheep and goats already moved with nomads before 7000 BC.
- CamelA camel's hump holds fat, not water. Its real water savings happen elsewhere in the body.
- MuleHittites once valued a mule at three times the price of a good horse. The Sumerians rated one worth seven donkeys.
- American bisonBy 1889, only 541 American bison were left in the United States. They once numbered an estimated 60 million.
- DeerIn Old English, the word dēor meant any wild animal, not just deer. Only English narrowed it to one family.
- LlamaThe llama holds a place in Aymara mythology. Its Heavenly Llama is said to drink water from the ocean and release it as rain. In Aymara belief about the end of time, llamas will return to the springs and ponds from which they came. The…
- Nomadic pastoralismBetween 30 and 40 million people still follow the grass with their herds.
- ReindeerA walking reindeer clicks, and the sound can be heard from several hundred metres away. The noise comes from small tendons in the legs slipping over bony knobs called sesamoid bones. It happens as the full weight of a foot lands, or just…
- Animal husbandryHumans tamed dogs before they grew a single crop. Animal husbandry began around 13,000 BC.
- Water buffaloThe water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, carries a nickname that sums up its job: "the living tractor of the East." Today an estimated 208,098,759 head live across 77 countries on five continents. As recently as 2011, the global count stood at…