It turns out pigs love gaming too!

Hamlet - or perhaps Omelette - hits the arcade, hoping to win big

You know the old saying 'when pigs fly'?

Well they aren't flying just yet - but they have learned how to play video games!

Researchers from Canada have taught four talented pigs how to move a joystick using their snouts and control a cursor on a computer monitor.

The whole idea was for the researchers to see if the pigs could move to joystick in a way that allowed them to get a treat.

And, it's not the first time hogs have shown that they're on a one way train to the piggy bank.

In past studies pigs have managed to solve multiple-choice puzzles and learn commands like 'sit'.

Animal behaviour experts are calling the gaming discovery "remarkable" because pigs have really bad vision and are animals with no opposable thumbs.

The experiment was explained in the scientific academic journal "Frontiers in Psychology" and here's how it worked...

Ebony the pig operates a joystick

The researchers presented four pigs with a video game in which they had to use a joystick to move a cursor until it hit one of the four walls on the screen.

Every time the pig managed to hit one of the walls with the cursor they'd hear a '"bloop" sound and get a treat.

The more successful the pig was, the fewer number of walls would be available to hit.

The researchers wanted to see whether the pigs could successfully hit a wall on their first cursor movement.

The pigs weren't as successful as other non-human primates like monkeys but they were a lot more successful than experts thought they ever would be.