Fascinating Facts About Horses
Horses have accompanied humans for thousands of years and they show no sign of going away. As such, they’re an instantly recognizable and familiar sight, even though increasingly many of us only ever really see them on television. It’s a shame, really, because these mighty animals are well worth all the attention they can get. Today, let’s honor them by taking a look at some of the more interesting aspects of their life and history.
Each day for the next 10 days we will release an interesting fact about these magestic and magnificent animals.
We photograph them so it's a must we get to know them better.
“Horse Laugh”
You may have seen a horse making a strange expression where it curls its upper lip and bares its teeth into a wide grin. This makes the animal look like it’s laughing. In reality, this is part of a special nose-enhancing technique called a flehmen response.
Horses pull this amusing face in order to direct scents floating in the air toward special olfactory glands that are located at the end of the horse’s nasal passage. The lip-curling and the slight tilting of head help the animal to waft these smells toward these glands. The horse isn’t laughing at you, it’s just trying to determine whether you smell bad.
The flehmen response is far more common in male than female horses. Much like giraffes, stallions often sample the urine of mares this way to check if they’re in heat.
