A robust aurochs

It often happens that my aurochs reconstructions might turn out a bit too lightweight. I always use original skeletons for the proportions, but I think it is possible that I underestimate the amount of soft tissue on the skeleton for fully grown adult aurochs. So also in my new aurochs model. It should be anatomically correct as it is based on multiple specimen, but it might be a bit too gracile on the soft tissue anatomy for a fully grown bull. 

So I took one of the photos of the model, tracked it out and finally did a truly massive aurochs specimen as far as the skeleton allows, and used extant wild bovines, especially wisent, as an analogue. This is the result: 

I think that fully grown, old and solitary aurochs bulls might have looked like this. There is an Italian cro-magnon stone carving that might show such a bull, which is portrayed as a pretty robust specimen (here). 

I think that an aurochs skeleton does not allow much more mass. The model is based mainly on the Sassenberg bull, which is described as an almost senile specimen because of its extensive tooth wear. So fully grown aurochs probably did not get much more massive than that, it simply was a comparably gracile species apparently.