Remember me
– Used a backscratcher to get at a hard-to-reach itch? You have something in common with a cow in an Austrian village.
The cow has made headlines by not just using a stick to scratch herself, but applying different parts of the tool for different purposes, with researchers suggesting this points to how the cognitive abilities of cattle have been underestimated.
The 13-year-old Brown Swiss cow, named Veronika, is kept as a pet by Mr Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker living in the mountain village of Notsch in southern Austria.
Mr Wiegele noticed about a decade ago that Veronika would occasionally pick up sticks and use them to scratch herself.
A video recording of the cow’s behaviour was shared with Dr Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (VUW).
Dr Auersperg – who had received several such videos after a book she co-authored on intelligence in various creatures, The Inventiveness Of Animals, was published in February 2025 – said it was “immediately clear” that the cow’s behaviour was not accidental.
“This was a meaningful example of tool use in a species that is rarely considered from a cognitive perspective,” she said.
Together with Dr Antonio Osuna-Mascaro, a post-doctoral researcher at VUW, she travelled to Notsch to conduct systematic behavioral tests with the cow, which was given a brush with a long handle.
The pair found that Veronika would typically use the bristled end of the brush when scratching broad, firm areas such as her back.
It would switch to the smooth handle end when targeting the softer and more sensitive regions of her lower body.
The cow would use wide, forceful movements to scratch her upper body, while her lower-body scratching was slower and highly controlled, the researchers said.
This demonstrates “genuinely flexible tool use” for a cow, said Dr Osuna-Mascaro.
“Veronika is not just using an object to scratch herself. She uses different parts of the same tool for different purposes, and she applies different techniques depending on the function of the tool and the body region,” he said.
Veronika uses different ends of the brush to target different parts of her body, which researchers say demonstrate flexible tool use for a cow.
PHOTO: ANTONIO J. OSUNA-MASCARO
Beyond the use of tools – defined as the manipulation of an external object to achieve a goal through mechanical means – the researchers found that Veronika was able to achieve flexible, multi-purpose tool use, using different features of the same object for different outcomes.
Such multiple uses of tools has rarely been documented in animals, besides chimpanzees.
While an animal using tools on its body is considered less complex than using them to manipulate external objects, Dr Osuna-Mascaro noted that Veronika faced physical constraints as she had to do so using her mouth.
“What is striking is how she compensates for these limitations, anticipating the outcome of her actions and adjusting her grip and movements accordingly,” he said.
The research, published in the scientific journal Current Biology on Jan 19, is believed to be the first to document the use of tools, as well as flexible, multi-purpose tool use, by cattle.
The researchers suggested that Veronika’s circumstances may have played an important role in her behavior, noting that most cows do not reach her age or live in open and complex environments.
They are also rarely given the opportunity to interact with a variety of manipulable objects.
Veronika’s long lifespan, daily contact with humans, and access to a rich physical landscape likely created favourable conditions to develop exploratory and innovative behaviour, the researchers said.
Believing the phenomenon to be more widespread than currently documented, the team now seeks to understand what environmental and social conditions allow such behaviours to emerge in livestock species, and how many similar cases may have gone unnoticed.
The paper makes reference to a 1982 edition of The Far Side, the long-running comic strip by cartoonist Gary Larson.
Entitled Cow Tools, the strip depicts a cow standing next to an array of strange, useless objects, implying that the animals are not intelligent enough to make or use tools.
Though Veronika did not fashion her tools, unlike the cow in The Far Side strip, she was able to select and use one with “notable dexterity and flexibility”, the researchers said.
“Perhaps the real absurdity lies not in imagining a tool-using cow, but in assuming such a thing could never exist.”