Sure-footed Moroccan goats take to the trees

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‘Driving from Marrakesh to Casablanca we spotted these goats in a tree,’ submitter mbhackett explains. We’re glad mbhackett had the foresight to bring a camera along on the trip!

Morocco’s tree-climbing goats are actually a well-documented phenomenon. They favor Argan trees, on which grow the apparently-irresistible-to-goats Argan berries. But that’s not the strange part. ‘The droppings of the goats contain the kernels of the seeds they consume, which are, strangely enough, used by locals to press and grind into oil,’ according to WebEcoist. ‘Even more disturbingly: This oil has a number of uses including culinary (yes, people eat it) and cosmetic (yes, they also smear it on themselves).’

We can’t say we’re dying to smear Argan oil on ourselves (at least, not the goat-obtained variety; it can also be obtained using a solvent-extraction method), but it does sound like an improvement over Civet coffee.

-- Lindsay Barnett