There's a goat that stiffens up and falls.
There's a goat that stiffens up and falls.
They literally drop to the ground when they're startled or excited.
We’re gonna stray a bit from our typical topics. Usually, I would write stuff about wild animals. But I stumbled across this fact on the internet and had to share it.
And yes, there is a goat that actually stiffens and falls over when excited or startled. Known as the myotonic goat or the Tennessee fainting goat, the Tennessee fainting goat is an American breed of goat.
But despite the name, they don’t actually faint or lose consciousness. They simply just drop to the ground.
You can blame myotonia congenita for this - a hereditary condition that affects the skeletal muscles used for movement.
The goat’s muscles voluntary contract in response to certain actions such as running away. But the problem is, their muscles don’t immediately relax. The result of this, is a goat that is unable to move due to its rigid muscles.
These rigid spells are typically caused by the goats being spooked by a potential threat, loud and sudden movements, or simply from being excited. As the goats attempt to flee or move, their muscle stiffens, causing them to fall over, making it seemed like they have fainted from fright. And in this rigid state, the goats are pretty much helpless.
That makes hunting easy for any nearby predators.
The muscle stiffness only last about 5 - 20 seconds, with some goats being more severely affected by the condition than others. No harm comes to the goat, unless they fall from a height, or a predator snatches them.
If the goat is cross bred with other goats, they also typically don’t pass on this condition. That’s because the gene that causes myotonia congenita is recessive. This means that the goat will need two copies - one from its father and one from its mother, to suffer from the condition.
And the interesting thing is, the origin of this disorder remains a mystery. All we know that is the Tennessee fainting goats are thought to have made an appearance in around 1800 in Tennessee, USA. Other than that, scientists are unsure as to whether a genetic mutation caused their myotonia congenita, or if it was introduced from another breed.
So, if you see a goat suddenly drop to the ground while still conscious, it’s likely you have come across a Tennessee fainting goat. I would not recommend intentionally trying to scare it though, unless you want to piss off the farmer.