AssetID: 55397807
Headline: UNCAPTIONED: New 'Cow Tools' research transforms our understanding of bovine intelligence and proves famous cartoon wrong
Caption: Gary Larson's 1982 The Far Side cartoon Cow Tools has long delighted internet jokers - with its oblique anti-humour making it one of his most shared creations online. However, researchers now say that the famous strip depicting a no-nothing tooled up bovine may have been unfair, as a cow has been discovered displaying the rare animal ability of tool use. A paper published on 19 January in the journal Current Biology suggests that cattle may be more cognitively capable than previously thought. Veronika is a Swiss Brown cow who has lived for many years as a companion animal in the Austrian village of Carinthia. Her owner, Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker, regards her as part of his family. More than a decade ago, he noticed that Veronika would sometimes pick up sticks in her mouth and use them to scratch herself. In a series of controlled trials, scientists placed a deck brush on the ground in random orientations and recorded which end Veronika chose and which part of her body she targeted. Across repeated sessions, her choices were consistent and suited to the body regions she was scratching. When scratching softer and more sensitive areas of her lower body, she switched to the smooth handle. The study represents the first documented case of tool use in cattle and the first evidence of flexible, multi-purpose tool use in the species.
Keywords: Natural World,Gary Larson,The Far Side,Cow Tools cartoon,Veronika the cow,Swiss Brown cow,tool use in cattle,Current Biology journal,January 19 study,Alice Auersperg,Antonio Osuna-Mascaró,University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna,cognitive biology,animal intelligence,livestock cognition,pet cow,Carinthia village,Witgar Wiegele,deck brush experiment,flexible tool use,multi-purpose tool use,egocentric tool use,scratching behaviour,scientific observation,first documented case,animal cognition,animal behaviour,tool use,scientific research,cognitive science,ethology,unexpected discoveries,livestock studies,farm animals,behavioural flexibility,comparative cognition,animal research,intelligence in animals
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