No bull: This Austrian cow has learned to use tools

No wonder cow milk tastes so good! 😊

"About a decade ago, a baker in a small mountainous village in southern Austria noticed his cow doing something unusual. When Veronika had an itch, she would grab a stick in her mouth and use it to scratch her body. Over the years, the brown bovid’s technique improved. She could pick up objects as large as a broom or rake and move them around with her prehensile tongue, changing their length and orientation to ensure the best possible scratch.

The behavior isn’t just a clever trick: It’s the first documented case of tool use in cattle, scientists report today in Current Biology. And, it turns out, one of Veronika’s skills has only been seen in humans and chimpanzees. ..."

From the abstract:

"Imagine the tools a cow would make. This idea, humorously illustrated in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, captures a widespread assumption: cows are neither problem-solvers nor tool users.

In science, as in culture, livestock species are often cognitively underestimated 😊, reinforced by their utilitarian role and persistent mind-denial biases associated with meat consumption.

Despite over 10,000 years of domestication, research on cattle cognition remains scarce and confined to applied contexts such as productivity and welfare.

Tool use, while rarely observed, offers a stringent test of cognitive flexibility. Defined as the manipulation of an external object to achieve a goal via a mechanical interface, tooling ranges from species-typical routines to innovative, problem-specific acts.

We report here our experimental demonstration of flexible egocentric tooling in a pet cow (Bos taurus), Veronika, who uses a deck brush to self-scratch. Across randomized trials, she preferred the bristled end but switched to the stick end when targeting softer lower-body areas. This adaptive deployment of tool features reveals multi-purpose tool use not previously reported in non-primate mammals. Our findings broaden the taxonomic scope of flexible tool use and invite a reassessment of livestock cognition."

No bull: This Austrian cow has learned to use tools | Science | AAAS

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Australians find themselves in an "arms race" with trash bin diving and raiding cockatiels

What a story! Smart birds! Gives survival of the fittest a new meaning! 😊

"... In Australia they can be very numerous, so much so, in fact, to be considered pests. They can grow up to 55 cm (17.5–21.5 in) in length, with those in Australia typically growing larger than those of the subspecies from New Guinea and nearby islands. ...

According to the authors, this behavior seems to have spread through direct observation from a single bird (or a small number of individuals) that first figured out how to do so. In essence, the research suggests that the birds in Sydney and the surrounding region have now developed their own tradition of bin-diving.

And now, they seem to be adapting further by learning to bypass the series of increasingly-creative ways locals are trying to prevent them from reaching their trash. This is a previously-unexplored example of an “interspecies innovation arms race,” the authors conclude.

Sightings revealed that a single cockatoo will open a bin by lifting the lid with its beak from the front edge. From there, while still holding, it will walk backward towards the hinge, which eventually forces the lid to flip open. An earlier study revealed that knowledge of this technique spread as other birds looked on, creating local “traditions”. ..."

Australians find themselves in an "arms race" with bin-raiding cockatiels Locals in the Sydney area are having to come up with increasingly-creative ways to keep the birds out of their trash.

Birds do have a brain cortex—and think

Amazing stuff!

"However, birds, and particularly corvids (such as ravens), are as cognitively capable as monkeys (1) and even great apes (2). Because their neurons are smaller, the pallium of songbirds and parrots actually comprises many more information-processing neuronal units than the equivalent-sized mammalian cortices (3). On page 1626 of this issue, Nieder et al. (4) show that the bird pallium has neurons that represent what it perceives—a hallmark of consciousness. And on page 1585 of this issue, Stacho et al. (5) establish that the bird pallium has similar organization to the mammalian cortex."

Birds do have a brain cortex—and think | Science