Alice Auersperg

2/2 On the left, Alice Auersperg (@auersperga.bsky.social) with Veronika and her new fancy broom.
On the right is a photo of me with the ever-great Witgar Wiegele.

Bravo Ondrej!!

This is who runs this account

Cracking cancer’s code, and the cow that scratches its back Plus, SpaceX’s Starlink continues to expand…

Naked scientist Podcast with Veronika: www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/nak...

Cover girl Veronika is making headlines across the globe🐂
(animal cleverness trumps human stupidity)

Notably, she is a 'companion cow' not used for meat or dairy.

Maybe if we saw other creatures less as a means to an end, we could appreciate their richness better...

www.cell.com/current-biol...

YouTube video by Antonio Jose Osuna Mascaró Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow

I have prepared a video summarizing the study. Please come back here after reading the thread : )

youtu.be/bAk4PFEuWKQ English

also
youtu.be/CETjjZBMT5c Spanish
youtu.be/tkpjlCxDJZA German

(Thanks to Esau Dharma for providing the Spanish voice for Witgar Wiegele!)

Die klügste Kuh der Welt kommt aus Kärnten Ein Rindvieh aus dem Gailtal kratzt buchstäblich an unseren Vorstellungen von Tierintelligenz: Bei Veronika wurde nämlich flexibler Werkzeuggebrauch nachgewiesen

Die klügste #Kuh der Welt: Veronika aus Kärnten verblüfft mit ihrem intelligenten Gebrauch von Werkzeugen. Ihr spezialisierter Besengebrauch wird von Kognitionsforschenden untersucht. #FWF-funded @auersperga.bsky.social @biotay.bsky.social 🐮

via @derstandard.at
www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

“We Didn't Even Think About Looking”: Broom-Wielding Veronika Shows Tool Use In Cows Isn't So Absurd After All Veronika the cow is the first documented example of flexible, multipurpose tool use in cattle – and she’s also a very good girl.

Last week I had the privilege of speaking with @auersperga.bsky.social and @biotay.bsky.social about a very talented cow. She's called Veronika, she's fabulous and she's currently getting a lot of well-deserved attention. Here's my piece for @iflscience.com:

www.iflscience.com/we-didnt-eve...

Cows itch, just like us. But Veronika the cow takes things into her own hands. Or rather: into her mouth.

Scientists say it’s the first experimentally verified instance of cattle using a tool. https://wapo.st/3NzJ84A

Cow Tools!

We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years.
We breed them and exploit them

It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS

Here I describe our study

(paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social
with @auersperga.bsky.social

Do Cows Use Tools? This One Does.

Veronika‚s Story in the New York Times www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/s...

Ever seen a pet cow pick up a broom and scratch herself with it? You have now A pet cow in Austria started using a broom to scratch herself — the first ever documented case of bovine tool use.

The perfect story to take your mind off other news:

Veronika, a cow in Austria, has been documented not only using a tool - a broomstick - but using it in different ways to scratch different parts of her body. 🧪 #animals #animalbehavior #intelligence

www.livescience.com/animals/land...

No bull: This Austrian cow has learned to use tools First evidence for tool use in cattle includes a skill previously seen only in humans and chimpanzees

No bull: nice article about our study by David Grimm | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Kluge Kärntner Kuh verblüfft Wissenschaft Die 13-jährige Veronika aus Kärnten könnte die klügste Kuh der Welt sein. Denn sie verwendet Werkzeuge gezielt und flexibel. Wenn es sie juckt, kratzt sie sich mit einem Besen – abhängig von der Körpe...

Verrückter Fakt des Tages #vfdt
heute hochaktuell:
Veronika, eine Kuh aus Kärnten, verwendet offenbar gezielt und überlegt Werkzeuge. Sie zeigt ein Niveau von Werkzeugnutzung, das man bisher nur von Schimpansen kannte.
science.orf.at/stories/3233...

Thanks ! It was entirely accidental. Someone alerted us to Veronika after I had published a book on animal innovation.

Veronika does not only scratch her body. She may also scratch at our assumptions about the cognitive limits of livestock.

Veronika is 13 years old and has been kept as a pet rather than for production by the farmer and baker Witgar Wiegele. She has never been trained to use tools. Since the age of four, she has spontaneously picked up natural twigs from her pasture and has since markedly refined her technique.

YouTube video by Antonio Jose Osuna Mascaró Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow

She uses the bristled end of a deck brush on her back and hindquarters, using repeated place-and-pull motions. For more sensitive areas such as the belly flap, udder, and anal region, she switches to the stick end, using careful, repeated poke-and-lift movements. See video link: youtu.be/bAk4PFEuWKQ

Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Assistant Professor in Translational Immunology/Immunometabolism (Tenure Track) - Vienna (Statutarstadt) (AT) job with Medical University of Vienna | 12852692 Assistant Professor position in Translational Immunology/Immunometabolism for the Messerli Research Institute of Human Animal Interactions

New Messerli Professorship available: www.nature.com/naturecareer...

YouTube video by Ze Frank True Facts: Is The Goffin's Cockatoo The Smartest Bird?

A fun and informative video by @zefrank.bsky.social (True Facts) about our research on Goffin's cockatoos!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq9J...

Our new theoretical paper on combinatory tool use origins is out !
with @raccoonologist.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

The flexible, the stereotyped and the in‐between: putting together the combinatory tool use origins hypothesis Tool use research has long made the distinction between tool using that is considered learned and flexible, and that which appears to be instinctive and stereotyped. However, animals with an inherite...

I had the honour of working to bring @auersperga.bsky.social’s baby to life. It’s a VERY heavy baby - over 200 references (and yes I read them all) - but necessary to do justice to our new hypothesis of combinatory tool use origins 📝👶🛠️

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

How do curiosity and surprise intersect following a violation of expectation? Read our paper here🔥
@auersperga.bsky.social @ivojacobs.bsky.social @elifduran.bsky.social

I love the beak-foot coordination in this

New paper out today w @dalmaijer.bsky.social @barbaraklump.bsky.social and @lucymaplin.bsky.social as part of the Phil Trans special issue doi.org/10.1098/rstb.... Over 2 years, we studied a population of cockatoos thought to be the source of the innovation of bin-opening.

Highlight of my day: Steve Novella from my fave podcast @theskepticsguide.bsky.social saw right through this immediately. The issue here is definitional and you can almost claim any object is tool use with the current definitions - which is why ”tooling“ is a better framework to study the phenomenon

Beyond criterion: cognitive flexibility in wild striated caracaras: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Cognition #Ecology

Highly recommended! I just finished a cover-to-cover read, and it's a great addition to the avian sensory ecology literature with excellent discussions of the links between brain & behavior. I prefer reading paper books (better retention) but the whole thing is freely downloadable! bit.ly/482xPZm 🦉🧠

Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Fully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social.
We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures.

All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
Please share / apply!🙏