A possible skull of Bos primigenius siciliae

A while ago I did a post on the aurochs and insular dwarfism. On Sicily, the Sicilian dwarf aurochs, Bos primigenius siciliae, was found during the late Pleistocene. Now I found a photo of a possible skull of that subspecies on Wikimedia Commons: 

Uploaded by the user Ghedo on Wikimedia Commons

I am not sure if it is really a skull of B. p. siciliae or just an aurochs found in Sicily, but the skull does not look very large. If it is really a skull of the Sicilian dwarf subspecies, it could mean that it was a comparably long-horned subspecies. Too bad the facial skull is not preserved, it would be interesting to know if this subspecies exhibited paedomorphy, which is often found in dwarf species. 

Another study debunks the Konik myth

Unfortunately, many still believe in the Konik myth. According to the narrative, the Konik allegedly descends from the last wild horses of Poland kept at the game park of Zamosc that were allegedly donated to local farmers who bred them into their domestic horse stock. This story is very unlikely and goes back to only one sentence in a historic source of very dubious accuracy. Closely tied to the Konik myth is the usage of the word "tarpan" for the European or western Eurasian wild horse. Many authors uncritically adopted speculations from other authors and portrayed them as facts in their own works, and so the myth became very persistent. The narrative became: "The tarpan was the European wild horse, and the Konik is the descendant of the tarpan".

The recent paper of Lovasz, Fages and Amrhein from last year examines the history of the word "tarpan" in scientific literature, and also the history and origin of the Konik myth. The study can be found here. 

The idea that the Konik descends from Polands last wild horses goes back to a notion by Julius Brincken in his 1826 work. He mentions in one sentence that those last wild horses were donated to local farmers of the Bilgoraj region and bred to domestic horses of that region. The Konik, so claim later authors in the 20th century, is said to descend from these hybrids. However, it is by no means certain that those horses at the game park of Zamosc were wild horses. Most likely they were hybrids (see here). Also, Brincken's work is not credible as it includes many inaccuracies and fabrications (see van Vuure, 2014). Even if Brincken's notion is correct, it is unlikely that the farmers tolerated a great influence of wild horses in their highly bred farm horses. And even if they did, the subsequent story of those hybrids is not documented. It is not known if those horse lineages, if they would have existed, continued into the 20th century when hippologists became interested in the rural horses of that region which were called Panje horses (the name Konik was coined later, in the 1920s and 1930s) and it is also not documented that the Konik itself descends from those purported lineages. Yes, it is true that the Konik has the same coat colour as the late European wild horse (black dun, also called grullo or mouse dun). But that is the result of artificial selection. The original stock of the Konik in the 1920s included many colours, black dun was only one of them. It was subsequent selective breeding in the middle and later half of the 20th century that created the now mostly black dun Konik (see Jeziersky & Jaworski 2008). 

Thus, the Konik myth is a romantic story but not based on solid evidence. It is merely based on one sentence in a very questionable historic source and even if this sentence is accurate, there are many other variables in the equation (did the farmers tolerate wild influence in their highly bred horses? Did those lineages continue into the 20th century? Does the Konik really descend from those lineages, if they existed at all?). Some want the Konik to be a wild horse, but this pony is rather a black dun robust landrace (nothing more and nothing less), not a recent wild horse descendant. That does not diminish its value in landscape conservation, but I wish a wider variety of horse breeds would be used for that purpose. 

I wonder why still so many believe in the Konik myth. Horse breeding seems to be somewhat romanticized and connected to emotions, the Sorraia origin story or the Exmoor pony story for example are not based on reliable facts either. 

Literature 

Lovasz, Fages & Amrhein: Konik, Tarpan, European wild horse: An origin story with conservation implications. 2021. 

van Vuure: On the origin of the Polish konik and its relation to Dutch nature management. 2014. 

Jeziersky & Jaworski: Der polnische Konik. 2008. 

The last aurochs were from Bulgaria, 18th century (!)

The year 1627 is commonly provided as the extinction date of the aurochs, when the last cow of the Jaktorow population died in Poland. A horn core from Moldavia which dates back to the early 17th century suggests that there was another remnant population in that country at least [1]. In 2020, however, a horn core was found in Sofia which probably dates back to the first half of the 18th century [2]. This is the youngest aurochs material known today and very exciting. It means that the extinction date of 1627 is wrong, and that the less accessible forests of Bulgaria or perhaps the entire northern Balkans provided enough space for a remnant aurochs population that was able to survive until the first half of the 18th century. 

Here is a link to the paper. 

Literature 

[1] Bejenaru et al.: Holocene subfossil records of the auroch (Bos primigenius) in Romania. 2013. 

[2] Boev, Z.: The last Bos primigenius survived in Bulgaria (Cetartiodactyla: Bovidae). 2022. 

How the Heck brothers could have done their work better

In a post from 2015, I evaluated the “breeding-back” experiments executed by Heinz and Lutz Heck. I came to the conclusion that they made several technical mistakes and could have done their work better given the circumstances of their time. This post is going to look at how they could have done their experiments better using the possibilities they had when they started in the 1920s. 

 

Step 1: Getting an accurate picture of the aurochs 

 

One of the reasons why the Heck brothers failed at creating a phenotypic copy of the aurochs is that they did not have an accurate, precise picture of the aurochs. They did research, and they also resolved at least some coat colour traits of the animal, but the picture of the aurochs they had included errors and needless speculations such as a red dorsal stripe instead of a grey one as the historic evidence suggest, or a greyish tone in the colour of the cows. The biggest problem was that they failed to recognize the morphology of the aurochs. Apparently, they never saw a mounted aurochs specimen or if they saw one, they did not take a close look at it. Doing so would have told them that the trunk of the aurochs was much shorter than in domestic cattle, that the legs were longer, the head larger and more elongated, and that aurochs had a hump formed by long spinal processes in the shoulder region. Surely, it was not as easy to see a mounted aurochs skeleton as it is today (a quick google search is enough to find photos nowadays), but there were more or less complete aurochs skeletons back this time in Germany (at least the Haßleben specimen which was described in 1827). They did not study the skeletal remains of aurochs, thus the most important part of the aurochs’ life appearance, the morphology, played no role in the projects of the Heck brothers. 

They could have done better by looking for a museum that would have had a mounted aurochs specimen and study its differences to modern cattle. Their research on the colour of the aurochs should not have included baseless speculations, but rather they should have strictly followed what the historic evidence that was available to them inferred. Doing that would have enabled them to get a pretty accurate picture of the European aurochs’ morphology and life appearance even back in the 1920s. 

 

Step 2: Creating a strict breeding goal and not ignoring certain traits 

 

Before starting any breeding, it would have been vital to set up breeding criteria that are based on what has been found out about the aurochs’ life appearance. The Heck brothers did not have a clear breeding goal because they did not have a precise picture of the aurochs. Furthermore, they ignored certain traits. Body size was ignored, udder size was ignored, the morphology was not recognized. Thus, anything that roughly met the Heck brothers’ idea of the coat colour of the aurochs and had longer horns would have matched their rather wide selection criteria. Therefore, it is not surprising that they announced success after a few years of breeding, since their breeding goal was not clearly defined. If the Heck brothers had created a clear catalogue of traits the cattle should have that also included all the traits found in the aurochs and not only some, their breeding would have been much more efficient. 

 

Step 3: Finding suitable breeds

 

This step was without doubt the trickiest of all, because back this time there was much less information available. It was unknown where the aurochs was domesticated, were the most aurochs-like breeds would be found and there were barely any breeding associations to contact and no internet. The brothers, however, did find out that many Iberian breeds show traits of the aurochs. Lutz Heck was particularly impressed by the Spanish fighting bull, which is indeed one of the most aurochs-like breeds that are still around. Heinz Heck, on the other hand, did not use the Spanish fighting bull but included a number of derived breeds, because he hoped that they carry invisible aurochs traits that would surface again when crossed with more primitive breeds. This hope, however, did not fulfil. Retrospectively, it was a mistake to include derived breeds such as Black-pied lowland cattle, Murnau-Werdenfelser and others. The set of breeds selected by the Heck brothers was thus not ideal. The fact that they ignored certain traits (body size, udder size) or did not recognize them (morphology), was another reason why their set of breeds was not ideal. Thus, if the Heck brothers would have known about the morphology of the aurochs and cared about size, they would have looked for breeds that add these traits. If they would have stumbled across Chianina while searching for large breeds, they would have found a breed that adds large size and long legs and to a certain degree small udders. Lutz Heck recognized that Watussi can have aurochs-like horns but did not use that breed. Using it would have considerably increased the size of the horns of their cattle and would have compensated the small horns of other breeds used. Thus, if the Heck brothers would have used a different set of breeds, the result would have been much more aurochs-like. Corsican, Camargue and Lidia are breeds that were used (Lidia only by Lutz Heck), they were valuable because they contributed the right colour (Corsican) or had an athletic morphology (Camargue and Lidia). If they sticked with those three breeds, and maybe also Podolian cattle (for the cold resistance and winter coat), but would not have used the derived ones, and included Watussi and Chianina, the potential for an aurochs-like outcome would have been much larger than it was with the set of breeds they chose. A mix of Corsican, Camargue, Lidia, Chianina, Watussi and perhaps a Podolian breed would have had great potential. 

 

Step 4: Strict selective breeding focusing on the breeding goal 

 

As the Heck brothers did not have a very precise breeding goal, they barely carried out strict selection, leading to a very heterogeneous result. More precise selection criteria and strict selective breeding would have created a more aurochs-like outcome. 

 

Step 5: Setting up a studbook and ensuring that selective breeding is maintained while the breed is expanded to other locations 

 

It was certainly sloppy that the Heck brothers did not set up a studbook for their cattle. Also, the fact that there was no official catalogue containing selection criteria that they themselves and other breeders should have followed created chaos when the population was expanded to other locations. Some breeders selected their cattle for an aurochs-like appearance, such as the Wildgehege Neandertal, others did not, and Heck cattle became a very heterogeneous breed. Creating a catalogue with selection criteria that are based on the aurochs could have prevented this at least to a certain degree.  

 

If the Heck brothers did those five steps, and if the breeders that came after them sticked to the selection criteria, the resulting cattle would not only be better than Heck cattle as they are now, they would even be a lot better. I would even say, we could have the cattle of our dreams now if the Heck brothers would have done their work more thoroughly. Almost 100 years of efficient selective breeding is enough to create a homogeneous but genetically diverse breed of cattle with the right colour, large or even very large size, the right morphology and horns and a sufficient winter coat. Modern “breeding-back” projects are on a good way, but it will take its time until the goal is accomplished. If the Heck brothers did their work more thoroughly, that goal possibly might have been reached now in 2022.