Horses have faces for a reason, and they’re using them to communicate. That’s just one, basic joint-study discovery from researchers at the University of Sussex, University of Portsmouth (both in England) and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
While humans use 27 distinct facial movements to communicate, their report concluded that horses use 17, one more than dogs and four more than chimpanzees. Although horses and humans have a different facial build, the basic parallel remains that muscles are used to control eyes, lips and nostrils that form facial expressions.
Researchers concluded this using two methods. One was by studying 15 hours of video representing 86 male and female horses among various breeds and ages. The videos analyzed the horses in basic, naturally occurring situations and behaviors. They also dissected a horse head and looked at musculature features.
Another was through developing a new system, the Equine Facial Action Coding System, also known as EquiFACS. This tool coded eye, lip, nostril and chin movements into a gestural map by analyzing the muscle movements to form them. It has already pointed to evolutionary parallels in how horses and humans show facial expressions.
The study proved, for example, that horses open their eyes wide in surprise, raise their inner eyebrows to show fear or sadness, or even pull back their lip corners to essentially smile. Researchers believe they can use this research in social situations and to better understand how horses use these expressions in certain emotional situations – all of which can benefit veterinarians and animal welfare groups.
Organizers of the study insist this topic is overlooked. Not only that, but the findings are powerful because they can help us understand interspecies relationships and connect facial expressional to emotional states. �
