A remarkable cow named Veronika is forcing scientists to reconsider long-held assumptions about the intelligence of cattle, thanks to her sophisticated and flexible use of a tool to scratch her back.
Veronika's Decade of Clever Scratching
The story begins with Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker in Austria who keeps the Swiss brown cow as a pet. More than ten years ago, he first noticed Veronika picking up a long-handled brush with her mouth and using it to scratch hard-to-reach parts of her body. A video of this behaviour eventually reached cognitive biologist Dr Alice Auersperg at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.
Dr Auersperg found the footage "immediately clear that this was not accidental," describing it as a meaningful example of tool use in a species rarely considered from a cognitive perspective. She suggested that assumptions about livestock intelligence might reflect gaps in human observation rather than genuine cognitive limits in the animals.
Scientific Tests Reveal Flexible Tool Use
Intrigued, Dr Auersperg and her colleague, Dr Antonio Osuna-Mascaró, visited Veronika to conduct formal behavioural tests. For their study, published in the journal Current Biology, they randomly placed a deck brush on the ground and recorded how the cow used it over repeated sessions. Her choices were both functional and consistent.
"We show that a cow can engage in genuinely flexible tool use," explained Dr Osuna-Mascaró. He detailed that Veronika did not simply use an object to scratch herself. She strategically used different parts of the same tool for different purposes and adapted her technique based on the tool's function and the body part she was targeting.
The researchers documented that Veronika prefers the bristled end of the brush for broad, firm areas like her back. However, for softer, more sensitive regions on her lower body, she carefully switches to the smooth stick end. Her movements also change: upper-body scratching involves wide, forceful strokes, while lower-body scratching is slower, more careful, and highly controlled.
Rethinking Cognition in Livestock
This type of flexible, multi-purpose use of a single tool is exceptionally rare in the animal kingdom. Outside of humans, the researchers note it has been convincingly demonstrated previously only in chimpanzees.
The team acknowledges that Veronika's unique life circumstances likely played a role. As a pet, she has enjoyed a long lifespan, daily contact with humans, and access to a rich physical environment. Most commercial cows do not reach her age, live in such open and complex settings, or have the opportunity to interact with a variety of objects.
The findings, dated from the study's context in January 2026, open new questions. The scientists are now keen to understand which environmental and social conditions allow such complex behaviours to emerge in livestock. Dr Osuna-Mascaró suspects this cognitive ability may be more widespread than currently documented and has invited the public to report similar observations of cows or bulls using objects for purposeful actions.
This single cow's clever solution to an itchy back has successfully scratched the surface of scientific understanding, revealing that bovine intelligence may be far more nuanced than previously imagined.
