Over the last few days, Egypt has been captivated by a viral video, posted on a Facebook group for buying and selling goats in the country. The video in question features a peculiar-looking creature with a long neck, protruding forehead, and seemingly unusual underbite. Despite having been – perhaps somewhat cruelly – dubbed the ‘goat monster’ by viewers, the animal is, in fact, a Damascus goat – a prize-winning species native to Syria, Cyprus, and Lebanon, coveted for its superior quality of milk. https://www.facebook.com/ahmed1376/videos/1645877995498212/ According to IFLScience, the now-famous goat is “likely the result of many generations of the most dramatically featured individuals being mated together”. Newspapers have mistakenly labeled the goat as ‘mutated’, not realising that his features are characteristic of the breed. Though his features are undoubtedly exaggerated when compared to the average Damascus goat, they are probably a little less extreme in real-life, as becomes apparent after a closer look at the video. From afar, to those who have never seen a Damascus goat, the animal’s mouth appears extremely large and somewhat grotesque, apparently opened wide to produce alarming screams. However, the noises heard in the video are in fact…
