Pygmy Goat
Mammal
The pygmy goat is a small, sturdy, friendly breed of domestic goat, standing only knee-high to an adult. A nimble climber and curious browser, it happily eats tough, spiky plants — brambles and nettles included — that most other farm animals leave well alone.
💡 Fun Facts
- A pygmy goat has no front teeth on its top jaw at all! Instead it has a tough, hard pad called a dental pad. To grab a mouthful, it grips a leaf — or a prickly bramble — between its eight sharp bottom teeth and that top pad, then gives a tug to tear it off. (It does have grinding teeth, called molars, tucked further back for chewing.)
- Goats are "browsers", and their lips are so nimble they work almost like fingers. That lets a pygmy goat munch spiky, woody plants most farm animals won't go near — brambles (thorns and all!), stinging nettles and hedgerow leaves. They will try almost anything, which is why people use goats to clear overgrown, brambly ground — though they are actually quite fussy, and won't really eat old tin cans!
- A pygmy goat has strange rectangular pupils that give it a nearly all-round view — about 320 degrees — so it can watch for danger in almost every direction at once. The pupils even swivel to stay level with the ground when it dips its head to feed. Pygmy goats are brilliant climbers and balancers, too.
Name Story
Capra hircus
means “she-goat, he-goat”
What does its name mean?
- capra — she-goat (a nanny goat)Latin
- hircus — he-goat (a billy goat)Latin
This name is 'goat' said two ways: capra is the Latin for a female goat and hircus for a male. It's the scientific name for the domestic goat in general — the pygmy goat is simply a small, friendly breed of that same animal, not a separate kind.