Veronica Cow has a scratching broom, and she knows how to use it
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as it happens6:36Cow named Veronica surprises scientists with her skillful use of tools
The second Antonio Osuna-Mascarro and Alice Orsperg saw a video of Veronica Guy scratching her back with a branch, they knew they had to drop everything to meet her.
Cognitive biologists at the Vienna Veterinary University have long Studying tool use among non-human animalsBut they had never seen it in a cow before.
“We immediately got in the car and drove five hours from Vienna to the south of Austria to meet Veronica,” Osuna-Mascaro said. as it happens Host Nil Koksal.
That said, Veronica did not disappoint.
The researchers gave him a broom, and were amazed to see how quickly and efficiently he used it, using a variety of techniques to relieve his various itches.
They state their conclusions, Published in the journal Current Biology on mondayDisprove long-held beliefs about the intelligence of cows.
Veronica, a 13-year-old brown Swiss cow living in an Austrian mountain village, has surprised scientists with her ability to use a broom to scratch herself, a rare example of tool use demonstrated in livestock. Researchers at Vienna Veterinary University say their dexterity and ingenuity prove that people have long underestimated the intelligence of cows. (Video credit: Veterinary University Vienna)
Veronica is a 13-year-old brown Swiss cow who lives as a pet in the mountain village of Knotsch in southern Austria.
His owner, Vitgar Wigele, first saw him pick up branches and use them to scratch himself about nine years agoGo. Wigley told researchers that over the years, she learned to use the shorter one to relieve itching near her head, and the longer one to reach those hard-to-reach places.
Veronica wasted no time in showing off her skills to the scientists. Within five minutes of his arrival last summer, Wiegele gave Guy a stick, and he got to work.
“We almost fell to the ground,” Osuna-Mascaro said. “It was really, really impressive.”
The scientists wanted to test whether Veronica’s scratches met the criteria for “flexible tooling,” which is defined as using an object to extend its body while applying mechanical force to the target.
So he gave him a broom.
“Because the broom has a functional end and a non-functional end,” says Mascaro.
Veronica not only immediately preferred scratching with the bristle part of the broom, but she also began to explore different ways to use the tool to meet her different needs.
She used the end of the broom to scratch thick-skinned parts of her body, such as her back, but used the handle to scratch softer, more sensitive areas, such as her udder and belly.
extensive tool use in animals
Benjamin Beck, retired scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and co-author of the book animal tool behavior, Veronica says that Veronica’s scratching undoubtedly meets the criteria for flexible device use.
“This is an amazing example of tool use by a cow, and it’s really remarkable that Veronica often uses different ends of the tool on different areas of her body, each of which has different properties,” Beck told CBC in an email.
However, he challenged the authors’ claim that this is the first documented example of flexible device use in cattle.
In his book, he and his colleagues also describe water buffaloes in zoos ripping out tracks from fences and using them to scratch themselves.
However, Veronica’s behavior appears to be unique among bovines, he said.
Scientists are divided on whether tool use in animals is a sign of advanced cognition, or just natural programming.
But what is certain is that documented device use in animals is becoming increasingly widespread.
Dolphins have been observed using shells to extract fish. An elephant has been documented in a zoo in Berlin Using a hose to bathe yourself. Some fish use hard surfaces to break hard-shelled prey. Boxer Crabs Use sea anemones as defensive weapons.
Crows not only use a variety of tools, but also use Tailor them to their specific needs.
This is a far cry from man’s understanding of the animal kingdom before 1960, when the late primatologist Jane Goodall First documented use of tools in chimpanzeesOverturning long-held notions of device-use t wasHe defined the characteristic that distinguishes humans from other animals,
Still, Mascaro says that research on tool-use has focused on more exotic animals rather than the livestock with which we are often surrounded.
“This is because we underestimate the cognitive abilities of the animals we exploit,” he said.
