"In the 1980s, American cartoonist Gary Larson published a humorous cartoon that became a classic: Cow Tools. It depicts a cow next to some tools that are difficult to identify but appear to be useless. No one understood the joke, to the point that the author had to issue a statement to explain himself. The joke, he said, stemmed from the idea that if cows made tools, they would be ineffective and absurd."
"These researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna placed a broom with two different ends in front of Veronika: one with stiff bristles and the other smooth. Over seven sessions of 10 experimental trials, Veronika used the broom 76 times to scratch herself. With her mouth and tongue, she lifted the broom, carefully adjusted it, and held it firmly between her teeth to achieve precise control over which end to use."
A domestic cow named Veronika in Carinthia, Austria, learned to use a stick and a broom to scratch different body parts. Biologists presented a broom with one stiff-bristled end and one smooth end and recorded Veronika using the broom 76 times across seven sessions of ten trials. She lifted and adjusted the broom with mouth and tongue, holding it between her teeth to select the appropriate end. Grip changes matched target area, indicating anticipatory, flexible tool use previously documented only in primates and corvids. The case is the first consistent evidence of flexible tool use in cattle.
Read at english.elpais.com
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