Optical Illusion of Cow With 'No Body' Leaves Internet Udderly Baffled

A picture appearing to show a cow with no visible body grazing on a patch of grass is proving to be the source of much a-moo-sement online.

The optical illusion was shared on Reddit by a user posting under the handle u/badlysightsee. It has amassed over 10,000 upvotes from users, who were perplexed at the cow's apparent lack of dairy air.

"This cow has no body," the caption accompanying the bizarre image reads.

Plenty of animal lovers online were left stumped by the picture. ANeopSpecter said: "This is wild. Like I can see the shadow, but the angles don't make sense. Cows are HUGE!"

A1Sauc3d wrote: "That's not a cow. It's a long curly haired penguin waddling away from us with its wings flapping!"

While there are no documented instances of a cow being born without a body, a cow was delivered with two heads in North Macedonia in April 2021, according to Reuters.

The rare two-headed calf was born with polycephaly, which results in more than one head. While the condition is most commonly found in snakes and turtles, cases have been seen among farm animals such as pigs, sheep and cows.

While animals with this condition share organs and limbs, they often have two brains that can clash for control, leaving the animals struggling to move in a coordinated fashion.

The cow discovered in North Macedonia had two pairs of eyes and one pair of ears and was able to suckle simultaneously from its two mouths.

In the case of the posted cow picture, the reason behind the apparent bodiless animal was a little more mundane. Several Reddit users said that the image was likely the result of trick photography or a perfectly timed snap.

"It's all about the camera lens. It's super close and has a super wide angle/view so the head blocks the view of everything behind it," user shyre explained. "The large angle does not fit the angle we are used to from our eye so the angles don't make sense to us."

Yadobler elaborated: "Very close, the head obscures a lot of things. Very far, the head would not obscure much. Very much like your thumb in front of you and away from you."

Despite the various explanations, for many the image was simply an excuse to indulge in puns or cow-related quips related to the optical illusion.

NorMichTrailRider said: "Everybody has somebody," while Competitive_Bad7599 commented simply: "Ground Beef."

Skiv4a branded it an example of a "Bluetooth cow," and JinxedOne dubbed it the "Easter Island Cow."

"Sometimes I feel like this cow," Migdog1198 said, while Total-Ring-5421 wrote: "Now the Chicago Bulls logo makes sense."

Newsweek could not verify the details of the posting and reached out to u/BadlySightsee for comment.