A scientist says there’s a possible explanation for the bizarre phenomenon involving an enormous flock of sheep caught on film walking in a circle for 12 days straight in China.
The eerie video, which was posted on Twitter last week by the Chinese state-run outlet People’s Each day, shows dozens of the animals marching around and around on a farm in China’s distant Inner Mongolia region.
The tweet accompanying the creepy footage assured viewers that the sheep are healthy — and the expert suggests there also could possibly be a really natural reason behind the animals’ striking behavior, which has unnerved and mystified people around the globe.
“It looks just like the sheep are within the pen for long periods, and this might result in stereotypic behavior, with the repeated circling as a result of frustration about being within the pen and limited,” said Matt Bell, a professor on the Department of Agriculture at Hartpury University in Gloucester, England, to Newsweek. “Then the opposite sheep join, as they’re flock animals, and bond or join their friends.”
The social behavior of sheep is dominated by flock mentality, which controls the animals’ movements and protects individuals from predators by prompting them to flee from danger as a bunch, in line with the Merck Veterinary Manual.
The sheep had been moving in an almost perfect circle since Nov. 4. It’s unclear whether or not they stopped to eat or drink or whether or not they were still moving in unison as of Monday.
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The owner of the sheep farm, identified as Ms. Miao, claimed that the spooky sheep roundelay began with just just a few animals before the remainder of the flock joined in, Metro reported.
Although there are 34 sheep pens on the farm, only the sheep in certainly one of the pens — No. 13 — had been acting this fashion.
Some have speculated that the sheep’s behavior may be attributable to a bacterial disease called Listeriosis — also often called “circling disease.”
The illness may be transmitted through contaminated food, soil or animal feces. It causes a wide selection of symptoms, including depression, lack of appetite, fever, partial paralysis and circling behavior.
Listeriosis often causes death in infected animals inside 48 hours, so it doesn’t explain how the sheep in China continued walking in a circle for 12 days.