The Aurochs: The Beefy Ancestor of Domestic Cattle

Hello everyone, Dr Polaris here. Of all the domesticated animals reared by humans, the largest and most imposing are the several species of bovines that live alongside us, namely the water buffaloes, yaks and of course the cattle. Utilised for their meat and milk, as well as their ability to pull heavy loads, these animals originate from several different species of wild bovines that were domesticated independently multiple times and in multiple places. However, the subject of today's episode, the fearsome extinct aurochs, gave rise to the so-called taurine cattle that originated in Eurasia and Africa and were then later exported around the world beginning in the early modern period. This impressive animal, while generally similar to some of the more archaic modern cattle breeds in appearance, possessed its own unique suite of anatomical traits. For one, the skull was proportionally larger and more elongated than in domestic cattle, while the legs were longer with the overall build being more athletic, possessing strongly muscled necks and shoulders. Although overall size varied by location and time, the aurochs was generally larger than domestic cattle, with the most massive bulls standing about six feet tall at the shoulder and weighing up to 1,500 kilograms or about 3,310 pounds. Significant sexual dimorphism was present, with bulls being much larger than cows. Mature males were also black in colour, with a white stripe running along the back, while the cows were reddish-brown. Like their modern relatives, aurochs almost certainly lived in small herds, particularly during the winter, while these groups fractured during the summer months. Social status in the herd was probably established by fighting and display, with both bulls and cows taking part. During the mating season, bulls would engage in violent clashes in order to establish breeding rights, with fossil evidence suggesting that these encounters could be fatal. Calves were born in spring and would have stayed with their mothers until they were strong enough to join the herd. The young would have been preyed upon by a variety of predators, including wolves, hyenas and brown bears, while the herd would have provided quite a According to historical records, the aurochs was fast for its size and could be incredibly dangerous when provoked, having little fear of humans. Classified as boss primogenius, the aurochs first appeared during the middle Pleistocene, roughly 780,000 years ago. Although exactly where the species originated is currently uncertain, at present the oldest known fossils are represented by a single skull from Tunisia. Therefore, some paleontologists have argued that the aurochs, as well as the genus boss as a whole, originated in Africa and then later spread into Eurasia, while others have placed the origin of this animal in the Indian subcontinent, having evolved there from the earlier boss Acutifrons. Phylogenetic studies have found the aurochs, as well as its domesticated modern descendants, to be the most basal members of the boss, probably diverging during the early Pleistocene. Fossils of the aurochs are common in India from the middle Pleistocene onwards, while the oldest European representatives of the species have been recovered from central Italy and date to roughly 500,000 years ago. During the Pleistocene, this animal possessed a very wide range, spanning from the Iberian Peninsula to Korea and Japan. It was also native to North Africa above the Sahara. Analysis of the locales in which the aurochs was found indicates that it preferred grassy plains, woodland edges and wetlands. In terms of diet, the aurochs was a mixed-browser grazer, consuming grasses, leaves, twigs and musts such as acorns. It was not a cold-adapted animal, with the European populations retreating into temperate Mediterranean refugia during glacial periods, where it lived alongside other megafaunal species, such as the straight-tusked elephant Palaeoxodon antiquus, the narrow-nosed rhino Stephanorhinus hematochus and the huge deer Megaloceros. Despite the large size and formidable nature of the aurochs, these animals were certainly not immune to predation as adults, being hunted by Panthera gombazoegensis, homotherium, cave lions, wolves, hyenas and humans. In fact, the aurochs and humans lived alongside each other for many tens of thousands of years, with the animal clearly leaving a mark on many different cultural groups. The aurochs is widely represented in Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern France, dating to between 36,000 and 21,000 years ago, while the wild bovine features a symbol of power and sexual prowess across the ancient Levant and Middle East. Unlike many other megafaunal mammals, the aurochs survived the end Pleistocene extinction event, probably due to its preference for warmer, more temperate climates. During the Holocene, Boss Primogenius retained a wide distribution, with its main predators now being lions, tigers, wolves and homo sapiens, with this period being witness to the decline and eventual extinction of the animal, down almost entirely to human interference. A major part of this process began with the gradual domestication of the aurochs, which began in the Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent, where cattle hunted and kept by Neolithic farmers gradually decreased in size between 9,800 and 7,500 BCE. Aurochs bones found at Murabet and Gobekli Tepe are larger in size than cattle bones from later Neolithic settlements in northern Syria, demonstrating the early stages of domestication. Results of genetic research indicate that all modern domestic cattle from Europe, the Levant and the Middle East arose from just 80 aurochs tamed in southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria about 10,500 years ago. These animals would have been members of the Eurasian auroch subspecies Boss Primogenius primogenius. Meanwhile, an independent domestication event took place in the Indian subcontinent between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago and gave rise the modern Zibu Boss Indicus. These differ from taurine cattle breeds in their possession of a fatty hump at the shoulders, a large dulat and the ability to withstand higher temperatures. Zibu are descendants of the Indian aurochs Boss Primogenius nematicus, which possibly became extinct roughly 3,800 years ago due to habitat loss and interbreeding with its domestic relatives, although the bones of Indian aurochs are difficult to differentiate from those of Zibu. A third initial domestication event occurred in North Africa that involved the local aurochs populations there, with modern African Sangha cattle having a mixture of indigenous Indian and taurine ancestry. It is currently uncertain as to when the African aurochs became extinct, with the Egyptian populations at least seemingly disappearing by around 1000 BCE. In Europe, aurochs populations were disrupted by the spread of Greek and Roman cultures in the Mediterranean, although remained more widespread in the forests of Central and Northern Europe. In Southern Scandinavia and the British Isles, the animal died out roughly 3,000 years ago due to the felling of its preferred forested habitats, while in Eastern Europe the aurochs survived much longer, persisting in marshy woodlands while being hunted by members of the nobility. The range of the species contracted until the last known individual, an adult female, died in 1627 of natural causes. However, a horn call excavated in 2020 in Sofia, Bulgaria, was identified as being from an aurochs. The archaeological layer in which it was found was dated to the second half of the 17th or the first half of the 18th century, suggesting that the aurochs may have survived in Bulgaria until that date. Despite the extinction of the species, there have been several attempts to resurrect the aurochs beginning in the 20th century. The most notable of these were undertaken in Germany by Lutz Heck in the 1920s and 30s, who desired to recreate the aurochs as part of a plan to create a supposedly mythological prehistoric German landscape. Lutz, alongside his brother Heinz, travelled across Europe, selecting everything from fighting cattle in Spain to Hungarian steppe cattle to recreate their version of the aurochs. They studied skulls and cave paintings to decide what their aurochs should look like, and both claimed success at reviving the animal by the mid-1930s. Their cattle were tall with large horns and aggressive dispositions, capable of surviving with limited human care, and in modern times would come to be known as Heck cattle. With backing from his powerful ally, Hermann Goering, these Heck cattle were exported around Europe and were treated as if they were truly recreations of Boss Primogenius, which they weren't. They were simply selectively bred members of Boss Taurus, with some vaguely aurochs-like traits, a situation reminiscent of the recent dire wolf recreation efforts by Colossal and the media frenzy surrounding them. As critics have pointed out, an aurochs-like phenotype does not equal an aurochs-like genotype, with Heck cattle not only being lighter and shorter than Boss Primogenius, but also possessing a proportionally smaller skull, less muscular shoulders, and more upward-curving horns. Also, unlike the aurochs, Heck cattle have highly variable coat colours, with some bulls having a similar lighter colouration to cows. In the opinion of some experts, other domestic cattle breeds, such as the Spanish Fighting Bull, resemble the aurochs at least as much as Heck cattle. Indeed, there is a great irony in that the wild aurochs has vanished in direct correlation to the continued rise of its domestic descendants, which have essentially taken over the world and are implicated in the extinction of other species due to their destructive impact on the environment. Thanks for watching everyone. The next episode will focus on another extinct animal, in this case being the original penguin, the Great Auk of the North Atlantic. See you again soon. Cheerio!