<
https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/ever-seen-a-pet-cow-pick-up-a-broom-and-scratch-herself-with-it-you-have-now>
"For the first time ever, a cow has been documented not only using a tool but
selecting which part to use when scratching at different parts of her body.
Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker in Austria amid the slopes of the
Eastern Alps, sometimes saw Veronika, his Braunvieh or Swiss brown cow (
Bos
taurus) picking up sticks in her mouth and using them to scratch herself.
She'd been doing it on and off for about nine years without any training when
he sent the footage to Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University
of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna."
Via Joyce Donahue. See also:
Meet Veronika, the tool-using cow
<
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/meet-veronika-the-tool-using-cow/>
"
Far Side fans might recall a classic 1982 cartoon called “Cow Tools,”
featuring a cow standing next to a jumble of strange objects—the joke being
that cows don’t use tools. That’s why a pet Swiss brown cow in Austria named
Veronika has caused a bit of a sensation: she likes to pick up random sticks
and use them to scratch herself. According to a new paper published in the
journal
Current Biology, this is a form of multipurpose tool use and suggests
that the cognitive capabilities of cows have been underestimated by
scientists."
Via Susan ****
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
