In news that is sure to delight fans of a certain Gary Larson cartoon turned meme about the limitations of bovine cognition, cow tools are real. Larson’s 1982 comic for his series The Far Side showed a cow standing behind a table bearing an array of oddly shaped objects.

The unexpected observation of a cow using a broom to scratch herself isn't necessarily surprising, but it expands our knowledge about the biodiversity of tooling.

Austrian researchers say they've found the first known example of tool use by cattle, courtesy of a Swiss-Brown cow named Veronika.

Veronika the cow uses a brush as a tool to scratch herself, revealing rare problem-solving skills and expanding what we know of tool use in animals.