The Cambridge specimen

The Cambridge aurochs is one of the complete aurochs skeletons that are on display. It was found in Burwell, England, and is mounted at the Museum of Zoology in Cambridge. It is the best-preserved British aurochs specimen, and of unknown age. For photos of the specimen, go here or here. 

The museum itself claims it was a bull. Indeed the postcranial skeleton looks masculine, with its robust bones and high shoulder spines. However, the skull reveals it was definitely a cow. The eye sockets are not very prominent, and the distance of the end of the frontal bone between the horns is considerably shorter than the distance between from eye socket to eye socket, while in male skulls the distance is about the same. A comparison between the skull of the Cambridge specimen (here) and skulls that are definitely male (f.e. here) shows its female nature. Furthermore, the withers height of the skeleton is only 145 cm (therefore the live animal must have been between 150 and 155 cm tall), see Frisch 2010. 

I did a reconstruction of the head of the specimen based on this photo: 

The horns resemble those of some Heck cattle from the Wörth lineage, go here and here for a comparison. The head of the specimen bears some resemblance to Sayaguesa and other primitive cattle. 

The white muzzle ring of the aurochs

The white or lightly coloured muzzle ring around the mouth (“mealy mouth”) of the aurochs in both sexes is a standard element when reconstructing the aurochs’ colour scheme. In this post, I am going to have a look at what the evidence actually says. 

First of all, the lightly coloured muzzle ring is part of the E+ wildtype colour in domestic cattle. Yet, written sources never mention the muzzle ring. Not even Anton Schneeberger’s precise description of the looks of the last aurochs at Jaktorow in Gesner 1602. 

Looking at contemporaneous artistic depictions, there is evidence for the muzzle ring in aurochs. Some cow depictions in cave paintings show a muzzle ring (see here and here), and also the bull depictions in Lascaux. The bull heads in Chauvet, on the other hand, definitely do not show it although the artist paid attention to the dorsal stripe. The oil painting from the 16^th century that Charles Hamilton Smith based his famous “Augsburg aurochs” drawing on and that could have been based on a life aurochs, showed, according to Smith, wholly black colour except for a white chin (van Vuure, 2005). 

In domestic cattle with a wildtype colour scheme, you sometimes see a reduced muzzle ring, particularly in aging bulls. The white area on the snout becomes smaller and darker, it may even completely disappear except for the lightly coloured chin. Apparently this also was the case in the individual the Augsburg painting was based on. In Bantengs and Gaurs, there is individual variation on the degree of the white muzzle ring. It may be fully expressed or reduced to lips and chin, or completely absent. 

Considering that some cave paintings do show the muzzle ring and that others do not, and that the original Augsburg painting showed a very reduced one, aurochs probably also were variable on this trait. It might have been reduced or virtually absent in quite a lot of bulls, particularly old ones, while it probably was present in cows and young individuals on a regular basis.  

Here you have a reconstruction of the Sassenberg bull with a reduced muzzle ring, the way many grown aurochs bulls might have looked like: 

Regarding the actual colour of the muzzle ring, whether it was plain white or just lightly coloured (beige, orangish, reddish, yellow), we have the same situation with the dorsal stripe. It might have varied from individual to individual and historic sources are not precise enough on that. 

The snout of the aurochs

The snout of the aurochs was much longer than in most domestic cattle (shortening of the skull is a typical trait of domestic animals). But this post is not about the length of the snout, but on the actual shape of the snout and nose. 

Literature describes the snout of the aurochs as straight (van Vuure, 2005). And for about half of the skulls I have seen so far this is true. But in the other half of the skulls, the snout looks different. Let us have a look at the male skulls first. While in the Vig specimen and the Sassenberg bull specimen the snout profile is rather straight, in the Baikal specimen, London specimen and Kopenhagen specimen, the nasal bone (the bone at the top of the snout) is actually slightly convex. You see that very clearly in the Baikal specimen. Furthermore, and this is a very interesting detail, the tip of the nasal bone is down-turned in the London specimen, Kopenhagen specimen and the Himmelev specimen, possibly also the Önarp specimen. This has implications for the nasal cartilage and thus the life appearance of the aurochs’ snout and nose. 

In some Lidia bulls, the tip of the snout is down-turned and the nose is rounded. You see that very clearly in this and this bull. The fact that the tip of the nasal bone in a number of aurochs specimen might indicate that those specimen also looked like that in life. You see that in my reconstruction of the Kopenhagen bull that I did recently: 

I am not completely sure about that as it is pretty hard to guess the soft-tissue by the bones only, but it could be that a down-turned snout tip is part of the original aurochs’ genetic diversity. If so, this apparently has been preserved in Lidia, the perhaps least-derived cattle breed on this world. I am not completely sure about that, but it is a possibility how some aurochs may have looked like. 

A convex snout profile is also found in female skulls. While the snout is straight in the Sassenberg cow specimen, the nasal bone of the Cambridge specimen is very convex and down-turned, visible on this photo. I did a life reconstruction based on that photo. Interestingly, the snout appears straight in the life reconstruction once the soft tissue is added.  

The Kopenhagen bull

The Kopenhagen specimen is a more or less complete and well-preserved aurochs specimen exhibited at the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. Its overall morphology suggests that it was a bull and it measures 180 cm tall at the withers. This means that in life it must have been between 185 and 190 cm tall. I recently did a life reconstruction based on a photo I was sent by Markus Bühler. 

© Markus Bühler

When doing reconstructions, I always take photos of the original bone material. In the case of skeletons, mounts at museums have to be taken with caution. Many of them are not mounted correctly. Often the knees are flexioned too much or too little, the position of the scapula is wrong or the spine is mounted in an unnatural manner. Therefore, before starting the reconstruction, I do a check if the skeleton is mounted correctly. In the case of the Kopenhagen skeleton, the mount is quite correct, the only thing I changed was the orientation of the humerus, I flexioned it a bit more than in the mount using GIMP on the original photo. Something that also has to be taken into account is the soft tissue between the bones in the living animal. There would be spinal discs between the vertebrae, elongating the spine compared to the mount, and there also would be cartilage between the leg elements. All in all, the live animal would appear bigger than the skeleton. Therefore I slightly elongated the spine on the photo. I also rotated the trunk slightly, so that its rear end is less lowered. Then I started the reconstruction. As usual I took living wild bovines as an anatomical analogue. This is the result: 

It basically looks like a large Iberian fighting bull, just with a shorter trunk and longer legs. To me, this is yet another reason to regard Lidia cattle as the least-derived cattle breed on this world. At least I do not know of any other cattle breed that bears that much resemblance to the aurochs. 

The Kopenhagen bull is one of the smaller-horned individuals, many have larger horns, but there are also some with smaller horns. 

Comparing an aurochs skeleton to a domestic bull

When comparing aurochs and cattle, we usually compare aurochs bone material to living cattle, what is basically comparing apples to bananas and bears the danger of wrong conclusions. Comparing bones to bones would be the most precise way to discern the differences between aurochs and cattle and to draw conclusions about the aurochs’ life appearance. 

There are plenty of mounted aurochs skeletons available on the web, but not so many of domestic cattle. I found a photo of a Holstein bull skeleton and will compare it to the Kopenhagen bull in this post. It is important to compare individuals of the same sex in order to eradicate the factor of sexual dimorphism. 

Photo © Markus Bühler

The Holstein bull skeleton I took for comparison can be found here. 

What is the most interesting difference between both skeletons to me are not the different proportions (the fact that aurochs and cattle differ quite drastically in proportions should be widely known by now) but the anatomy of the bones themselves. The aurochs’ skeleton is much more robust and the areas for muscle attachment are way more pronounced. The fact that the aurochs’ skeleton is more robust has also been noticed in the literature (see Frisch 2010). You see that very clearly in the neck and lumbar spine, the humerus and the head of the ulna. This means that the aurochs was more muscular and stronger than this domestic bull. The limb bones appear to be thicker and also the processes of the shoulder spines are more robust and also longer. It is not surprising that the neck, trunk and forelegs were stronger in the aurochs as these body parts are involved the most during intraspecific fights and fighting off predators. Thus, you see in the skeleton that the aurochs was like that of other wild bovines concerning muscling. Gaurs, for example, look like bodybuilders compared to domestic cattle. 

However, comparing only two individuals is not enough for a solid conclusion. A number of aurochs specimen and domestic specimen would have to be compared in order to rule out individual variation. Furthermore, it would be interesting to compare several breeds. Lidia might be closer to the aurochs in these respects than Holstein, as Lidia is a breed that is bred for fighting and has a less domestic physique. A true osteologic/osteometric study would be very interesting. It could be that there were also differences in the relative length of the leg elements. I have the suspicion that the humerus is slightly longer in the aurochs, which would allow larger muscles to attach. I did measurements using photos of the Holstein bull as well as the Kopenhagen, Lund and Braunschweig specimen. In the Holstein bull, the radius is 90% the length of the humerus, while in the aurochs specimen it was about 75% on average. So the aurochs’ humerus might be larger in relation. I have the same suspicion of the scapula. This would mean that the whole shoulder and upper arm region was more developed in the aurochs, what makes functionally sense and thus is plausible. However, I do not have the possibility to confirm this suspicion as I don’t have access to the specimen to measure them directly, only photos. 

A life reconstruction of the Kopenhagen bull is about to come.