By Taylor Nicioli, CNN
(CNN) — How does a cow scratch an itch on its back? An Austrian cow named Veronika has a solution that could change how we view livestock.
For the past decade, Veronika has been observed by her owner occasionally picking up sticks with her mouth, maneuvering the ends to reach areas of her body she can’t otherwise reach. When a team of animal behavior experts at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna recently saw a video of Veronika in action, they knew her use of sticks was exceptional.
Veronika’s innovative behavior is reported in a new study — the first to describe tool use in a pet cow, according to the researchers. It was published Monday in the journal Current Biology.
“What this tells us is that cows have the potential to innovate tool use, and we have ignored this fact for thousands of years,” lead author Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, said in an email. “There are around 1.5 billion heads of cattle in the world, and humans have lived with them for at least 10,000 years. It’s shocking that we’re only discovering this now.”
The research paves the way for more cattle to be observed for this trait and could be evidence that cognitive capabilities of farm animals are greater than once thought, Osuna-Mascaró said.
A cow using tools
Veronika, a Swiss Brown cow, lives on a farm in the small Austrian town of Nötsch im Gailtal. It has everything a pet cow could dream of, including a green meadow and plenty of neighbors who greet her in passing.
When the study authors first saw the video of Veronika using a stick to scratch herself, it was clear that the behavior was intentional and not accidental, Osuna-Mascaró said.
To test how far her tool-use capabilities went, the researchers performed a series of controlled trials in which they placed a deck brush in front of the cow in various orientations. Each time Veronika used her long tongue to pick up the stick, they recorded which end she selected and the body region she targeted when scratching herself.
The researchers found that not only was Veronika displaying true tool use — when a tool serves a functional purpose and allows the subject to extend its own bodily limits — but she had a clear preference for how the tool was used. The side of the brush with the bristles was used when Veronika would rub at the thick skin of her upper body, and the blunt handle was used for the areas of her lower body where her skin is more delicate, such as her udder.
“This is extremely surprising because the only other solid example of multipurpose tool use that we know of belongs to the chimpanzees of the Congo Basin. These, sometimes, are observed using a single tool with two different ends, and use one end to open a hole in the termite mounds, and the other end to fish for the termites,” Osuna-Mascaró said. “The spatial relations in Veronika’s case are simpler. Nevertheless, it’s astonishing to find that a cow has the capability to do something like this.”
While chimpanzees have the advantages of hands and opposable thumbs, Veronika still surprised the researchers with the control she had with her mouth; she would readjust her grip depending on what side of the brush she wanted, what part of her body she was targeting and the range of motion she needed for the area. For her upper body, she would maintain a scrubbing motion, whereas the stick end allowed for gentle forward pushes with more precision.
Marc Bekoff, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who was not involved with the study, agrees that Veronika’s use of the deck brush is a clear display of tool use.<