--- title: Horses Smile, Pout and Have Facial Expressions Just Like Humans description: Horse faces share some surprising similarities to humans in facial expressions, shows a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE canonical: https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-05T18:00:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T09:55:44.364Z article:section: Health og:title: Horses Smile and Pout Just Like Humans, Study Says og:description: Horse faces share some surprising similarities to humans in facial expressions, shows a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE og:url: https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf20cf381d599dfdd/69885e0bcd684879800a1214/horse-smile.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: horse smile og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Horses Smile and Pout Just Like Humans, Study Says twitter:description: Horse faces share some surprising similarities to humans in facial expressions, shows a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf20cf381d599dfdd/69885e0bcd684879800a1214/horse-smile.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Horses Smile and Pout Just Like Humans, Study Says ## Video: Waking the Dead: Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life [Watch (HLS stream): Waking the Dead: Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7mURxfr4.m3u8) (4:03)  _Published 2014-03-12. Conservationists and scientists have a saying, "extinction is forever." But soon biologists will clone long-gone animals in the hope to redefine that axiom to "DE-extinction is forever."_  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 5, 2015 6:00 PM UTC  Courtesy of Jennifer Wathan  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 5, 2015 6:00 PM UTC Horse faces share some surprising similarities to human faces, shows a curious new [study](http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131738) published in the journal _PLOS ONE_. After dissecting a horse head, analyzing its musculature, and scrutinizing 15 hours of horse video footage, a group of researchers managed to map out every possible facial expression a horse could make. It turns out our faces are a lot more similar than we think. “Horses and humans are distantly related and have such differently shaped faces that I personally thought there would be really no similarities,” says study author Jennifer Wathan, a PhD candidate in social cognition and communication in horses at the University of Sussex in the U.K. “But there was a surprising amount of similarities.” For the first time, Wathan and her colleagues created a full map of a horse face using a technique called the Facial Action Coding Systems (FACS). It’s a tool for objectively measuring facial movement, without letting subjective interpretations of facial expressions get in the way. Humans have a FACS (we make 27 separate facial movements), and so do chimpanzees (they make 13) and dogs (16 for them). But horses had even more: 17 facial movements in total. “Most people who have horses know they are expressive and use their ears a lot, but I’ve got to admit, I was really surprised by the extent to which they use their face,” Wathan says. “They’ve got a huge facial repertoire.” It’s not yet clear why there are similarities between humans and horses. “Whether animals communicate intentionally is still a huge and fairly contested issue,” she says. But three of our shared expressions particularly captivated Wathan. “One is raising the inner eyebrows,” she says—something humans do when we’re scared, surprised or sad. “You know, puppy-dog eyes,”she says. (Dogs really do this, by the way: one [study](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082686) of shelter dogs, by Bridget Waller and Juliane Kaminski at the University of Portsmouth, found that dogs who raised their brows were adopted faster than dogs who didn’t. You can see what it looks like by watching this video that the researchers made to go with their study:) “They think that’s potentially because it enhances the proportions of the dog’s face to make them look more like human babies,” Wathan says. “It taps into our sensory biases to provide care for human babies.” Horses also do this expression, she says, “and it seems that they do it in negative emotional situations, too.” Humans also pull the corners of their lips back—also known as smiling—sort of like horses do. “It seems to be part of the submissive gesture,” she says, and younger horses tend to do it to older horses. Finally, both humans and horses widen their eyes in fear. Findings like these can help us understand the evolution of complex communication between species—and they may suggest that using complex facial expressions to communicate is an ancient ability we shared with our last common ancestor with horses, or that the ability has evolved under the social pressure to communicate with important social partners, Wathan says.” Horses, like us, have a rich social life where effective communication would be to their advantage, she says. “The ability to use complex facial expressions was one of these things that was kind of touted as being uniquely human,” Wathan says. “But other species are doing it, and we share these abilities with all the other species around us.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/"},"headline":"Horses Smile and Pout Just Like Humans, Study Says","datePublished":"2015-08-05T18:00:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T09:55:44.364Z","description":"Horses are pros at sad puppy dog eyes and cheesy smiles","url":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/","keywords":["Research","Psychology","animals","Evolution","communication","Face","horses","Horse"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf20cf381d599dfdd/69885e0bcd684879800a1214/horse-smile.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf20cf381d599dfdd/69885e0bcd684879800a1214/horse-smile.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"horse smile","caption":"horse smile","creditText":"Courtesy of Jennifer Wathan","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/","name":"Horses Smile and Pout Just Like Humans, Study Says"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch: A Dog Making Eyebrow Expressions","description":"Watch: A Dog Making Eyebrow Expressions","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xDKhKQbi/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-08-05T17:40:09.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xDKhKQbi.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/","duration":"PT5S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Waking the Dead: Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life","description":"Conservationists and scientists have a saying, \"extinction is forever.\" But soon biologists will clone long-gone animals in the hope to redefine that axiom to \"DE-extinction is forever.\"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/7mURxfr4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-03-12T14:27:23.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7mURxfr4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/","duration":"PT4M3S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3985988/horses-facial-expressions/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```