The Drama of Llamas vs. the Gloating of the Goats

It should be no surprise to anyone that we're interested in sheep. But today we want to continue to mine the possibilities of our IronSheep 2014 dataset to bring you an alternative geography of animals as they are discussed and represented in social media [1]. Focusing on the global level and using a 10% sample of all geotagged tweets created between July 2012 and March 2014, we sought out to understand the global distribution of goats as opposed to llamas. 

Because, you know, it's important. Or perhaps because we're a bit bored.

While goats and llamas don't carry the same inherent antagonism as, say, bronies and juggalos [2], we thought it might be interesting to see how the two compare across the world since they are both major competitors to our favored sheep in the world of livestock [3]. At the most general level, llamas are absolutely dominant, with nearly triple the number of tweets as those mentioning goats, with 63,606 references to llamas and 24,322 references to goats. Of course, one does wonder, what all this llama/goat discourse is about? Are people extolling the virtue of their animal, or mentioning a chance sighting, or perhaps talking about what's on for dinner? Or perhaps someone has finally invented a hoof-accessible mobile device and the animals are taking to the net?

In any case, these raw numbers certainly don't tell the whole story, although arguably llamas are much cooler and more interesting than goats, so as to warrant significantly greater tweeting about them.

Global References to Goats and Llamas, July 2012-March 2014

Indeed, by mapping the concentrations of each term relative to the other, we can see that while llamas are dominant overall, their spatial distribution is much more concentrated, while goats, though in smaller numbers, are much more widely dispersed throughout the globe. 

Llamas dominate livestock-related tweeting in Latin America. While perhaps unsurprising given their offline manifestation throughout South America, Spain and Mexico actually have the highest number of both absolute and relative references to llamas, despite neither being a native habitat for the animal. Further, only two countries in the top 20 for relative references to llamas are not predominantly Spanish-speaking: Brazil has 1,189 more references to llamas based on our 10% sample, good for 8th most, while France has 82 more references to llamas, making it the 20th-most llama-est country in the world. Also interesting is the fact that the only three countries in Latin America and the Caribbean which do not favor llamas over goats are not Spanish-speaking: Guyana, Suriname and Haiti.

Meanwhile, the United States and United Kingdom are the only countries worldwide to display significant preference for goats over llamas, with over 10,000 and 3,000 more references respectively, while Nigeria, Canada and Australia all show some moderate preference for goats. The fact that the US also has the fifth-most absolute number of references to llamas just goes to show how much people in the US love their goats. I mean, who doesn't love goats, especially when they sound like humans? Plus, they can eat all of your leftover beer cans!

While much of Africa's preference for goats is also largely unsurprising given that it has some of the highest levels of global goat production next to China and India (which are likely lower on the goat rankings due to linguistic differences), we are somewhat baffled as to why most of Europe has a preference for llamas. But then again, after watching the goat screaming video for awhile it all seems to make sense.

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[1] But definitely not an animal geography.
[2] A quick Google search for "goats and llamas" will likely return a number of results for how farmers can use llamas to protect their goat herds. Should these results not show up for you, blame Google and their never-ending drive to collect massive amounts of personal data about you in order to create a personalized experience of the internet for you that never exposes you to such oddities or anything else you might find unseemly.
[3] The less said about cows the better.

Sheep Happens: Finding the "Big Six" of the Farmyard

It should come as no surprise (given the name of this blog) that we're a bit fond of sheep (hey, but not in that way). In that vein, we thought it would interesting to see if the rest of the world shares this predilection.

So, harkening back to the range wars of the American west we searched for the terms chicken, cow, goat, horse, pig and sheep. These animals were selected primarily by what showed up in my daughter's Old McDonald Had a Farm book (this is known more formally as consulting an indigenous source). Although not quite as charismatic as the "big six" of safaris (e.g., elephants, rhinos, lions, cheetahs, hippos and giraffes), the "big six" of livestock makes up for it with our ability to imitate the animal sounds. I challenge anyone to do a giraffe call right now…anyone? I thought as much.

In any case, the distribution of the "big six" at the global level is shown below. Right away we can see that "horse" (in yellow dots) cuts a wide swath through the world; a powerfully pedantic plethora of plentiful placemarks ponyness! Although I'm not quite sure what that last phrase means. Sometimes alliteration wins out over sensibility (I'd apologize but you knew what you were getting into by reading this blog).


Chickens (green dots) seem to be doing OK at the global level, but we fear for the sheep. At a whole range of levels. After all, they were the unwitting (albeit idiot) chorus that drowned out any rational conversation in Orwell's Animal Farm. Hmmm…some interesting parallels with modern politics.

Luckily, the expected center of sheep, the veritable stronghold of storied sheepiness - New Zealand - is well represented with a wooly covering of orange dots. Australia (at least when you get away from the beaches) is not doing too bad either; apparently wool is not what the Aussies wear at the ocean.


The United States replicates the global pattern of horses and chicken. Since the U.S. headquarters of Floatingsheep is surrounded by thoroughbred farms and a mere hour north of the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken, we interpret this as a sign that Kentucky's plans for world domination are well in hand. Just you wait.


We are also relieved to see that the U.S. has a few pockets of sheep out west, but clearly the cows and pigs never had a chance. And the less said about goats, the better.

The most interesting distribution, however, is within Europe which, despite being a very horsey place, still represents a fine figure of fascinating farmyard frontiers. Firstly, we must note the goodly concentration of sheep in Wales and Scotland; no surprise there, but heartening nonetheless. More startling is the popularity of sheep in France (including the island of Corsica). Who knew that amidst the foie gras, frog legs and escargot that such love of sheep was buried?


Alas, the news is not all good, for the pigs have secured a beachhead on Brittany with a thin powerful column heading directly towards the heart of France. What's more, the well established German pig passage (perambulating from Hamburg to Dusseldorf) appears poised to pierce the protective pockets of French Sheepdom!

So sadly, while we cannot foresee (ahem) flights of sheep everywhere, the pigs have not gained controlled as of yet! Sheep of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your fleece!

Beasts of England, Beasts of France-land,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the Golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Pig shall be o'er thrown,
And the fruitful fields of our lands
Shall be trod by sheep alone.*

* Apologies to George Orwell.

Have the sheep conquered racism?

One certainly doesn't need to look far to see evidence of the persistence of racism in our world today. And while it may not seem obvious, our kindred sheep (of the non-floating variety) are no strangers to such discrimination. How would it feel to literally be a black sheep? Probably not so good.

In a surprising move, it appears the sheep of the world (or humans, acting as a proxy for their fleeced friends) have made a concerted effort to counteract such pervasive racism in the virtual realm. As the map below shows, at all but around 100 randomly distributed points on the earth's surface, Google Maps references to "sheep" outnumber references to the infamous "Ku Klux Klan".

Sheep contra the Ku Klux Klan

This map, of course, does not take into account the potential that many of these references to sheep are actually related to an ongoing intra-species dispute over whose wool is the finest of all, a dispute indubitably wrapped up in its own forms of racist and nationalist language, thus only perpetuating the racism they have seemingly defeated. If only we could decipher all those placemarks that just say "baaaaaaaaaahh".