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Sheep, camels, goats and other hoofed (有蹄类) animals are better at figuring out solutions to puzzles when they are less integrated into social groups.

These individuals might be forced to find food, shelter and other needs on their own without group help, thus fuelling innovation, says Federica Amici at the University of Lipzig in Germany.

“If you’re not well integrated into your social group, you can’t count on friends providing you with support or sharing resources with you, and you have to count on yourself much more,” says Amici. “It’s interesting that problem-solving skills appear to be quite an alternative social skills.”

Amici and her colleagues wanted to consider how social groups affect individual animals’ capacity for innovation. They decided to concentrate on hoofed animals which live in widely varied social group structures and include both wild and domesticated species.

The team worked with 1111 hoofed animals from 13 species, all living in zoos in Spain, France and Germany. The researchers observed each animal every 15 minutes for several days to determine how well it was integrated into the group. Then, the team placed a set of covered cups, filled with whatever food each species particularly liked, in the enclosure (围场) with the animals. Video cameras recorded their behaviour without humans present.

Regardless of species, it was the less socially integrated individuals that were most successful at figuring out how to open the lids to get to the food inside the cups. It is possible that because these animals get left out of the group, they are motivated to find other ways to get food and other resources on their own, says Amici. Another possibility is that these individuals aren’t necessarily rejected by their social group. Rather, they choose to be alone because they figure things out on their own.

Whether the findings apply to humans and other species is unclear. “It’s tempting to see a parallel with humans,” says Amici. “Individuals with high problem-solving skills may not be the most socially skilled people.”