What ancient and historical depictions of the aurochs tell us

When trying to infer the morphology of the aurochs from all available evidence, we do reach a point where comparisons with living relatives (wild bovines and domestic cattle) will not get us any further because there are limits to what the skeletal morphology tells us about the surrounding soft tissue. This is where ancient and historical depictions made by people who actually encountered the living animals become helpful. With this post, I want to do a review of what I think these depictions tell us about the morphology of the wild bovine.

 

This post features some images; if you are the copyright holder of these images (in those where the copyright is not yet expired) please notify me if you want me to remove the images in question.

 

-) Cave paintings and prehistoric engravings

 

All prehistoric depictions show a rather short dewlap in both sexes that becomes very short in the throat region. This shape of the dewlap is similar to what we see in banteng. The backline is almost always slightly depressed in the middle of the trunk, creating an S-shape. Bulls are often shown with a rather massive and sometimes longish morphology, most notably the engravings at the Grotta de Romito and Dordogne.

The hump is indicated in most ancient depictions, but not nearly as prominent as in depictions of steppe bison. There is mostly no edge between the neck and the shoulder hump in the bulls, similar to what we see f.e. in Sayaguesa but unlike what we see in Lidia and most other domestic bulls.

 

-) The Zliten mosaic

 

It shows a rather athletic bull that might be an aurochs with a morphology similar to young Lidia bulls.

 

-) The Vapheio cup

 

The bulls on the Vapheio cup from ancient Greece show curly hair between the horns and rather longish trunks. The waist is not as slender as in young Lidia bulls and the dewlap is again very short.

 

-) Bestiary of the British Library 12F XIII

 

This is the only depiction showing what might be a “mane” like in Lidia, Chillingham and some OVP Heck bulls. The trunk is rather short and narrowing towards the hips and the dewlap is short.

 

-) Aurochs hunt depiction from 16^th century of Nuremberg

 

It shows a bull with an athletic body with a narrow waist and a short trunk.

 

-) von Herberstein’s taxidermy

 

There are two contemporaneous drawings showing Sigismund von Herberstein’s aurochs taxidermy, one from 1556 and one from 1557. These drawings, however, have to be viewed with caution; not because they are stylized, all contemporaneous aurochs depictions are, but because it is based on a taxidermy and we do not know how authentic this taxidermy was. Von Herberstein was also in possession of a wisent taxidermy that was drawn by the same artist at the same time, and the wisent drawing is rather accurate, so the taxidermies might have been quite authentic and so might be the drawings.  

 

 

The 1556 drawing shows a massive body, short dewlap with a similar shape as in cave paintings,a hump not discernable (while illustrated very clearly in the wisent drawing), curly hair on the forehead, a slightly slanted pelvis as in banteng and gaur, which I believe to be the basal condition within the Bos clade.  

 

The 1557 coloured drawing shows a short but massive trunk, slightly slanted pelvis, a hump that is slightly indicated, dewlap short but more than one “flap” under the throat (more like domestic cattle) and the same curly hair as in the older drawing.

 

-) Charles Hamilton Smith’s aurochs

 

CHS’s copy of the lost “Augsburg painting” shows a very short dewlap with two indicated flaps in the throat region, a deep chest and relatively trunk narrowing towards the hip, a hump that is only indicated and neck muscles set apart from the hump. The original is said to have shown a coarse black coat.

 

I leave this analysis as it is for this post, my conclusions for the aurochs’ anatomy will be covered in an upcoming post that will also include some new reconstructions avoiding my old mistakes. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

Flaws and inaccuracies in my aurochs reconstructions and what we do not know

I did several dozens, perhaps roughly one hundred, aurochs reconstructions since I got into this topic in 2011. Some of them I nowadays consider outdated or not sufficient because in the early days I was not that experienced in drawing bovines. But also my recent reconstructions do have some flaws sometimes. I am still trying to accomplish the “one perfect aurochs reconstruction”, which is probably impossible to achieve (or maybe I am overcomplicating this issue). Anyway, I always appreciate constructive criticism, also because I am never 100% confident that the respective reconstruction shows what the aurochs really looked like. Most of my aurochs reconstructions are floating around on the web, often in places I don’t know, which makes it impossible for me to put a disclaimer on those that have apparent flaws. That is why I decided to make a post summarizing common flaws and inaccuracies that may happen to my reconstructions. If you have any flaws to add to this list, be it in general or to a particular reconstruction, please tell me, it is highly appreciated.

 

-) Exaggerating the morphology/the hump

 

Since I copy the proportions directly from photos of the skeleton in profile, and for head reconstructions I track out the skull, the proportions themselves should be alright in most of my reconstructions. However, I think I have a tendency to show certain aspects of the morphology in a too pronounced fashion, often due to a fear that the result looks too domestic. It is like I subconsciously think “I’ll do an anti-domestic cattle to be on the safe side”. But taking it to the other extreme is not good either.

In some of my reconstructions, the hump and the Musculus trapezius are very pronounced. That has two reasons: some aurochs skeletons, such as the Prejlerup bull, have rather tall spines that are not much shorter than in the wisent and I am not sure how pronounced it would be in the living animal. Some Lidia bulls, mostly those I consider less-derived, have very pronounced humps with well-developed trapezius muscles. In others it is less developed. Looking at the skeleton of a Heck bull (go here), it seems that its shoulder spines are not much shorter than in the Store-damme bull skeleton, and Steinberg/Wörth bulls do have a hump but not nearly as developed as in my reconstructions. Most contemporaneous depictions do show a hump, but not as super pronounced as in bison for example. If it was a very prominent trait in the living animal, it probably would show in the cave paintings/engravings.

I also tend to reconstruct the waist too slim because I often have used young Lidia bulls as an analogue. Looking at most wild bovines (fully grown ones) as much as ancient aurochs depictions, this might be inaccurate. Surely, the aurochs’ waist was most likely not barrel-shaped as in domestic cattle, therefore “more hump, less rump” should be the guideline but sometimes I exaggerate it. But I think it got better in my recent reconstructions.

 

-) Underestimating the bulk of the animal aka “shrink-wrapping”

 

This is a pitfall that happened in my 2023 sculptures. I noticed it and paid attention not to repeat that mistake in my more recent sculptures, but it also happened in some of my drawings. This is ironic, because I opposed “shrink-wrapping” in paleoart as early as 2008, when the term was not even invented yet. Looking at the bones too much makes one forget the bulk of soft tissue that surrounded them in life.

But the problem also is that I am completely uncertain how bulky the trunk of the aurochs was exactly. This differs among extant wild bovines and also changes with the individual age. But in general, most of my reconstructions are too light-weight compared to other wild bovines and archaeological aurochs depictions. It got better in my recent reconstructions, but I am still trying to figure out the accurate extent of soft tissue around the bones.

 

-) Ribcage not deep enough

 

The deep ribcage is an aurochs trait that is often overlooked, also in “breeding-back”. Most domestic cattle have a ribcage that is not nearly as deep as in the aurochs. I noticed that detail only a few years ago, hence some of my earlier reconstructions, and also some of the more recent ones, are incorrect in this respect.

 

-) Legs far too thin  

 

This is related to “shrink-wrapping”, but sometimes it happens that the legs of my reconstructions are so thin that not even the bones would fit into them. This is the case in my recent reconstruction of the Cambridge skeleton (go here). I have to pay more attention to that.

 

-) Underestimating the size of the horn sheaths

 

To be fair, there is no rule for how much keratin to add to a bovine horn. The solid part of preserved aurochs horn sheaths varies from 5 cm to 33 cm. So there is some room for artistic license. But in my older reconstructions I definitely underestimated the length that the sheath adds, and sometimes the horns I reconstruct might still be a bit too thin.

 

-) Ears too small

 

The skeleton provides no clues as to how large the ears were in life. Maybe the ears of the aurochs were as large relatively as in domestic cattle, although cave paintings show rather small ears. If domestic cattle are the standard, often the ears of my reconstructions are too small.

 

One reconstruction (or more accurately, an illustration, I did not track out the original bones for this one) that is devoid of these mistakes might be this one I did of the Önnarp aurochs:

 

Part of the reasons why these inaccuracies happen to my reconstructions is that not every aspect of the aurochs’ life appearance is known with certainty. Part of it consists of guesswork, but some guesses are better than others. But for the sake of completeness, here are some of the unknown/uncertain aspects of the life appearance of the bovine:

 

-) S-shaped spine or straight lumbar spine?

 

Looking at living wild bovines, I tend to assume that the lumbar spine of the aurochs was straight and horizontal. However, all ancient aurochs depictions show an S-curved back. I have been reconstructing aurochs with a straight lumbar spine for a decade now, but I think I’ll go with the S-curved back for the next couple of reconstructions because that trait is so consistent in ancient depictions.

 

-) How long was the dewlap?

European aurochs seem to have had a short dewlap, unlike indicine cattle or the kouprey. However, how short was it exactly? Some less-derived taurine cattle breeds have a very short dewlap with almost none in the throat area, and this kind of dewlap is depicted in ancient artistic depictions, so I go with that.

 

-) How bulky was the trunk at which stage of life?

 

This is very tricky to me as the skeleton does not really provide a clue on that. Wild bovines do vary greatly regarding the correlation of the depth of the ribcage and the bulk of the trunk in life – wisents have a deep ribcage but often a slender waist, as one would expect from the skeleton, but gaurs are much bulkier, particularly the bulls, while their ribcage is surprisingly not very deep. Domestic cattle are not a reliable analogue either, because domestication affected their morphology greatly. Ancient depictions suggest a bulkier trunk, with the exception of the bull depiction at Siga Verde, which shows a rather slim waist.

 

-) How prominent was the hump?

 

The answer to this question depends on how much the surrounding soft tissue obscured the hump and how developed the M. trapezius was. Regarding this muscle, there is quite some variation among domestic cattle, even within Lidia. Banteng and gaurs are not a good analogue for this question, as their trapezius is less developed because combat behaviour is not as common in these species as in Bos taurus.

 

-) Was the aurochs shredded like the gaur and some Lidia?

 

Gaurs do look like bovine bodybuilders. Their muscles are well-developed and defined. Some Lidia bulls come close to this. In most wild bovine species, however, this is not the case. But the bones of the aurochs suggest that it was quite muscular because the muscle scars and attachments are very pronounced.

 

These are all of the most important flaws and inaccuracies in my aurochs reconstructions I can think of at the moment. If you know some that have not been mentioned here, feel free to point me to them.

 

The Prejlerup bull with gaur as a template

We do have a rough idea of how the postcranial morphology of the aurochs looked like in life, but the fact that soft tissue is not preserved gives room for quite some speculation. What the result of the reconstruction looks like also depends on what animals you use as a template for the reconstruction. I tend to avoid highly domesticated breeds for my reconstructions, because domestication has a dramatic impact on the morphology of cattle. If I use domestics as a template, it usually is Lidia, Corriente or feral cattle that I use.

 

But this time I wanted to pretend that the aurochs does not have living descendants and took a more or less distant (the aurochs does not have really close relatives among living wild bovines) relative among wild species as a template, the gaur. I wanted to reconstruct the Prejlerup bull, which is not only the largest more or less complete skeleton of the aurochs that we currently have, but also the bull with the coolest morphology. The massive skeleton with the well-developed muscle attachments suggests to me that this specimen at least was very muscular, quite like a gaur. So I looked not only at cave paintings and other artistic depictions of aurochs but also at the morphology of living gaurs. The basis for the reconstruction is this photo of the Prejlerup skeleton that my friend Markus Bühler sent me:

 

The skeleton is mounted rather accurately, only the hindlegs might be bent to much. Other than that, it is a very nice mount.

Looking at depictions from Dorogne, Lascaux and Chauvet and living gaur bulls, this is the result of my reconstruction:

 

I think it looks plausible and is not even very different from reconstructions where I used less-derived domestic cattle as a template.

 

My next couple of reconstructions will be another experiment: I will reconstruct them as if there were absolutely no living relatives of the aurochs, with only the skeletons and the contemporaneous artistic depictions as a guide.

 

Portrait of the Vig bull

Recently I did a little portrait of the Vig bull, one of the two famous Danish aurochs specimen (the other one being the Prejlerup bull). I started it by tracking out a photo of the skeleton and reconstructing the tissue around it, then redrawing my sketch onto a canvas. The actual painting was done in acrylics. 

The Vig bull is from the early Holocene of Denmark, when forests started to become more prevalent after the mass extinction of Megafauna back in the late Pleistocene, so I chose a forest edge as a background. 

The result can be seen on my new Instagram account (go here). Consider following me there, I will upload most of my new aurochs artworks there. 

I am quite happy with the result, it also matches the Lascaux bull paintings very well, I think.  

Why dividing the mainland aurochs into subspecies might be outdated

It has long been established that the aurochs can be divided into several mainland subspecies: B. p. namadicus, the Indian (South-Asian) one, B. p. mauretanicus (African), B. p. primigenius (European) and B. p. suxianensis (East-Asian). I was not entirely happy with this taxonomy, as it is clear that they are not distinct, isolated clades but have a continuous range and the morphological differences between them are more like tendencies (such as that East-Asian ones tend to have a convex snout but these are not exclusive to them etc.) rather than clear autapomorphies. Recent genetic analyses suggest that the idea of mainland aurochs subspecies tied to certain regions is not tenable and that the evolutionary history of the aurochs was much more complex than what a taxonomy with four mainland subspecies would suggest. The island subspecies, however, are – at least in my opinion – a different story as they were clearly reproductively isolated for at least a certain amount of time. Two studies are of particular relevance for the phylogeny of wild Bos primigenius (or Bos taurus, depends on what you prefer).

 

Rossi et al., 2024: The genomic natural history of the aurochs.

38 aurochs genomes from the Late Pleistocene to Holocene were analyzed. The lines of taurine and indicine cattle diverged around 166-300kya. Taurine-line aurochs and indicine-line aurochs descend from a common population that lived around 390kya. Within the taurine-line aurochs, North Asian aurochs separated from Southwest-Asian aurochs after 100kya, splitting from a common ancestral population. More archaic aurochs, however, left a minor trace in those later taurine-line aurochs. The North-Asian aurochs haplogroups C and K split from the other taurine-line haplogroups P, Q, T, E and R around 96 to 72 kya.

 

Zhu et al., 2025: Revisiting aurochs haplogroup C: Paleogenomic perspectives from Northeastern China.

It covers all the mitochondrial haplogroups P, T, E, Q, R, G, K, C, I and shows a phylogenetic cladogram. The Central Asian haplogroup G is the basalmost one, basal to the group taurine + indicine line and separated around 400kya. R, so far found in North African aurochs, is closer to a clade of K and C from Asia than to T or P.

 

What is surprising to me is that the split between the taurine-line aurochs and indicine-line aurochs is that recent. This means that most namadicus fossils, which are from the Middle Pleistocene to the early late Pleistocene, cannot be considered ancestors of the zebu any more than other archaic aurochs from that time. It also means that the 700.000 year old Wadi Sarrat skull from Tunisia does not belong to the same line as late North African aurochs but is much more basal.

Looking at the phylogeny of the various aurochs haplogroups and comparing it to their location it becomes clear that the aurochs genomic history is much more complicated than a subdivision into four mainland subspecies would suggest. As Rossi et al. and Zhu et al. note, the range of the aurochs likely expanded and contracted with the countless climate oscillations during its existence, and looking at the relationship between R (North African) and K/C (Asia), clearly a lot of migration must have been involved.

I think that, based on the phylogeny of the various aurochs lineages, it is not useful to subdivide the mainland populations into subspecies. Especially as the type specimens for the respective subspecies taxa are not publicized (with the exception of B. p. primigenius, the Haßleben aurochs), which would be necessary to see which taxon equates to which genetic lineage. Apart from that, it would be of limited use to erect a subspecies taxon for each haplotype or genetic lineage given the diversity found within the aurochs. And we only know about half of the diversity found within the species, given that we do not have genomes from earlier aurochs. So now we know that there were non-crown-group aurochs in the late Pleistocene, that the split between indicine-line aurochs and taurine-line aurochs occurred fairly recently.

 

 

 

My book now available as an ebook

Due to the many request for an ebook, I now made a kindle ebook version of my book. The advantage is that it is way cheaper since there are no printing costs. If I had known how many want an ebook, I had made one from the start - I apologize. 

 

 Go here for the kindle ebook. 

Auerrind individuals joined the Fahrendahl Heck/Taurus herd!

Earlier this year, the Heck/Taurus herd at Fahrendahl (https://www.auerochsen-fahrendahl.de/) was joined by three individuals from the Auerrind project: Costanza (the Chianina x Watussi cow), Henry (a son of Claus and Doro) plus a young cross cow. Now new breeding herds have been assembled: 

The video shows one of the new breeding groups with the sire Ernie (not to be confused with Erni, the Steinberg/Wörth cow), who has Taurus influence and is estimated to be 150cm tall at the withers. Ernie's herd not only has Constanza in it, but also the extremely beautiful Taurus cow Eliese from the Lippeaue (a daughter of Laniel and a daughter of Londo and Lerida). 

 Another breeding herd this year is that of Elias - a son of Eliese and Egon (a Steinberg/Wörth-influenced Heck bull) with a top ancestry and great potential (and quite an aesthetic look, I think). 

The third breeding herd is with the bull Kasimir, a son of Dominator and Bionade! He is joined by Ella, a daughter of Egon and Eliese. What I love about this young cow is that the Chianina influence is recognizable yet it still has the dense and shaggy Heck cattle winter coat (you can see it here f.e.). They share the herd with some beautiful classical Heck cattle cows. 

 

I am amazed by these great animals and the potential of these combinations is tremendous. The Fahrendahl herds are definitely among the most promising breeding-back herds today.  

 

The African aurochs was even more different than usually assumed

I did a couple of posts on the fur colour of the African aurochs in the past, and all of them are more or less outdated. Yes, aurochs in Africa seem to have had a light colour saddle, but their colour was much more deviant than usually assumed.

 

It all depends on the nature of the bovines depicted in Egyptian tomb paintings. Van Vuure (2005) assumes those are all feral domestic cattle because of the horn shape depicted, but there are some that clearly show aurochs. One of them is the so-called “ostracon with fighting bulls”, which can be found on the internet. This inspired me to my painting of an aurochs bull with exactly that colour fighting off a lion in the Nile delta, which can be seen on my Instagram page.

 

But there are a number of depictions that suggest that there were even more deviant colour variants found in the North African aurochs populations. Looking at all of them, I did this reconstruction based on a skull at the Oran caves:

 

A list of tomb paintings suggesting this colour as much as what the genetic background of it might be can be found in my recently published book.

 

 

A sneak peek into my book

Today I want to give you a little sneak peek into my book so that you can see what you can expect from my book "Breeding-back wild beasts: aurochs, wild horse and quagga". Now available on Amazon. 

Life reconstructions, anatomical drawings of all types of aurochs 

 

Lots and lots of photos of "breeding-back" cattle, including brand new previously unreleased photos of the Hortobagyi animals

Previously unpublished reconstructions of wild horses

Reconstructions showing the variation within the quagga

The cover; I'll reveal the bull on the cover in an upcoming post

My book is available on Amazon!

Today is a great day for me. My book Breeding-back wild beasts: aurochs, wild horse and quagga is published and available on Amazon!

 

Go here for my book on Amazon

 

With this book, I turned all the material I gathered on this blog in 12 years into one comprehensive work, but I also included new studies that I haven’t covered on this blog yet. The bulk of the work is on the aurochs, but of course it also has a chapter on wild horses with a lot of material, and also a chapter on the quagga. And of course also a chapter on dedomestication, which is also relevant for “breeding-back”.

The book has more than 150 images, most of which are photos and life restorations I haven’t published previously.

 

These are the contents:

 

- In the first section, I cover the debate of the influence of megafauna on the landscape

- The phylogeny, taxonomy, behaviour, ecology and morphology of the aurochs is covered, the latter very extensively as you can imagine

- The domestication of the aurochs is outlined, including remarks on the mechanisms of domestication in general, including the domestication syndrome

- The history of breeding back is outlined, the role of genetics in breeding back is discussed

- A section on the history and various breeding lines of Heck cattle with lots of photos

- A section on Taurus cattle in Germany and Hungary with lots of photos, including never-before published new photos of Hungarian Taurus cattle

- A section on Tauros cattle with lots of photos

- A section on Auerrind cattle with lots of photos 

- A chapter of sections discussing hybridization with wild bovines in breeding back, the challenges for breeding back, new breeding strategies based on genetics et cetera

- The taxonomy of wild horses with remarks on the status of the Przewalski’s horse

- An extensive section on the quest for the morphology and appearance of western Eurasian wild horses and its alleged subtypes

- A section on the origins of the Exmoor pony, the Konik and the Sorraia

- Thoughts for a “breeding-back” project with horses, covering the Lippeaue horses

- A chapter on the phylogeny, morphology and appearance of the quagga and of course also the Quagga Project

- A chapter explaining my dedomestication hypothesis focusing on cattle, covering the Heck cattle at Oostvaardersplassen and Chillingham cattle, the latter with lots of photos

- Final remarks

 

The book is of course in colour and printed on qualitative paper so you can enjoy the lots and lots of photos and artworks.

 

As you know, I put my heart blood in this book and I am confident that readers of my blog and all other enthusiasts for these extinct animals will enjoy it very much.  

 

Another archaic aurochs: the Wadi Sarrat skull

A while ago, I posted a reconstruction I did of an archaic aurochs from India. This time, I did a little sculpture of an aurochs that was even older, the Wadi Sarrat skull. It was published in 2015, found in Tunisia and is roughly 770.000 years old. The skull is only partially preserved, but with complete horn cores that have astonishing dimensions. The horns face forward in a 40° angle. No postcranial material has been recovered as far as I know.

 

I reconstructed the body based on the Store-damme skeleton and the head and horns precisely after photos of the Wadi Sarrat skull. For the colouration, I was inspired by a colour found in many wildtype-coloured zebu: black base colour with a dorsal stripe, light areas on the ventral body and brownish flanks. There is no evidence for the colour of aurochs that old, and since the Wadi Sarrat skull is outside the modern aurochs crown group, we have a bit of artistic license for the colour. Here is the sculpture:

 

If the bull the Wadi Sarrat skull belonged to was proportioned like that, it would have been 160cm tall at the withers.

My new project: life-sized aurochs head bust

During the past few weeks, I have been busy with finalizing my book (which will be out soon) and also starting a new sculpture. This time it is not a small full-body sculpture but a life-sized aurochs head bust. It is based on the Ilford skull at the British Museum of London. I thought it would be most precise to at first replicate the skull as accurately as possible and then to reconstruct the soft tissue and fur around it. This is the replica of the skull, made of paper maché, fimo air and polyurethane foam, photo taken today:

 

It looks a bit slenderer than the Ilford skull, which is only on the photo. Perhaps due to perspective. A 3D-scan of the actual skull was very helpful to me for getting the proportions right. My replica is exactly 73,5 cm long, which is the size of the Ilford skull that I was told.

 

It was quite difficult to get the horns right, due to their highly three-dimensional curvature.

 

The next step will be connecting the lower jaw to the skull and then creating the base of the neck with the foam. Then I am going to sculpt the horn sheaths over the cores, which always involves some speculation as there is no rule of thumb of how much the sheath adds to the length of the horn. The final surface of the bust will be made of fimo air and I am going to paint it with acrylics.

Was the European aurochs woolly and shaggy like Highland cattle?

Thinking about the coat of the European aurochs, there is a notion from Conrad Gesner, who owned a piece of an aurochs skin, describing the coat as it follows:

 

“… the hairs are really very soft (surprisingly so), like the wool of sheep, close together…” (cited from van Vuure, 2005)

 

For quite a long time, I did not know what to make of that notion. My assumption was that the coat preserved on the skin was dismembering and that the longer outer coat had been fallen off, revealing the finer hair of the undercoat. While this is possible, there is also a quote from Anton Schneeberger, describing the aurochs of Jaktorow:

 

“They look a lot like domestic cattle, but are much larger and covered in longer hairs…” (cited from van Vuure, 2005)

 

He notes that aurochs were covered in longer hair than domestic cattle. This raises two questions: was he referring to the coat in general or just the winter coat? Which domestic cattle was he thinking of when comparing the aurochs against them? Since Schneeberger’s report is rather precise and he makes a special notion on the coat being shinier during autumn but not that the hair was only longer than in domestic cattle during winter, it could be possible that he was referring to the hair in general. Since he was German, he was probably comparing them against rural Central European breeds and not short-haired Southern European or even African breeds.

 

There is a third reference on the hair of the aurochs (by Baron Bonar):

 

“When the skin of this animal has been cleaned it is covered in very fine black hairs” (cited from van Vuure, 2005)

 

So we have two historic notions stating aurochs had very fine hair and one that these were longer than in domestic cattle. The notion that the coat was woolly is curious, as most cattle on this world have rather coarse hair. However, woolly long hairs remind of breeds such as Highland cattle and Galloways. Could it be possible that aurochs had a coat like those breeds?

 

Another detail of the coat of the aurochs is interesting, namely the curly hair on the forehead. We have two independent documents describing this trait in aurochs: Schneeberger and Swiecicky. Curly hair on the forehead is rather widespread among cattle, so it is surprising that the authors mentioned them specifically as a special trait of the aurochs. Schneeberger even stated that they make them “terrible to behold” and Swiecicky described the hair on the forehead as shaggy and mentioned that there was even an idiosyncratic name for that trait of the animal in Polish. This suggests that the curly and shaggy hair between the horns was more prominent in the aurochs than in domestic cattle, which fits the notion that they were covered in longer hair than cattle. Shaggy forehead hair again reminds of Highland cattle.

 

Would a Highland cattle coat have been functional for the aurochs? Given that it makes the breed extremely cold-tolerant one might think so, since Europe was, together with Northern China, the coldest part of the range of the species. However, their long coats can make the animals suffer heat stress above 30°C, which is why they often take a bath during summer to cool down. There have been cases where Highland cattle drowned in the mud because of that. This is not advantageous in the wild, which makes it unlikely to be the wildtype condition. Also, the forehead hair of Highland cattle is often so long and shaggy that they cover parts of the eyes, which would impede the sight of the animals and thus is not advantageous as well. But there are also Highland cattle in which the summer coat is much shorter than during winter. They then also have the very fine almost woolly hair. See this bull for example. I assume the heat stress with this kind of coat would be much less than when the hair is long all the year round.

 

Other British landraces such as English Park cattle, English Longhorn, Dexter cattle and Chillingham cattle also have a coat that looks comparably woolly by cattle standards, although shorter. The coat of Galloways ranges from very similar to that of Highland cattle to very similar to that of Park cattle. British landraces have been found to have been influenced by British or Northwestern European aurochs, so they might have their coat directly from aurochs of the Northern half of Europe. Cattle from other regions of the world usually do not have that coat, except for some Turano-Mongolian cattle such as Yakutian cattle. They have the same woolly, almost fluffy, coat and are known for their adaptions to very cold climate. Yakutian cattle are not particularly close related to British landraces as Turano-Mongolian cattle were quite isolated from European cattle breeds, but they might or might not have been influenced by local aurochs in Asia. I say this because the genetic evidence we have today makes it very likely that aurochs and cattle interbred everywhere they met, which does not make them any different from other species that were domesticated.

 

So, what does this tell us about the European aurochs’ coat? Without having any skins preserved, we cannot be sure how long, soft and woolly its coat was, and to which extent the winter coat and summer coat differed. But intuitively I think the coat might have been somewhat intermediary between that of Highland cattle and Chillingham cattle. I think so because the notion that the aurochs was covered in longer hair than domestic cattle was the second aspect of the aurochs’ appearance of all that Schneeberger mentioned, so that this might have been quite a prominent one. I have been speculating for quite a while that aurochs bulls might have had the curly mane that Chillingham cattle have (see the post “Forelocks and manes”). Its function might be protection from the horns during combat and is found in many taurine cattle bulls. Interestingly, it is also found in some Heck bulls in the Oostvaardersplassen reserve, but rarely outside the reserve. As for the hair between the horns, I think some Highland cattle with curly hair between the horns might be a good model for those of the aurochs, because they must have been prominent enough to be mentioned in several independent sources and to be called “shaggy”, which would suggest that the hair was longer than in Chillingham cattle at least between the horns.

 

Should this have implications for “breeding-back”? Maybe, maybe not. First of all, we don’t know how widespread that kind of fur was among the aurochs and I think it is quite likely that aurochs with a more southerly presence had the same coat we see in most taurine cattle. But if the cattle are to be as precise of a phenotypic copy of Northern/Central European aurochs, the use of Highland cattle might advantageous and I would like Chillingham cattle to be used in “breeding-back” in general. Yakutian cattle would also be fantastic, but probably difficult to acquire. Heck cattle and Tauros cattle have Highland cattle in their ancestry, so there might be potential in achieving the coat described by Schneeberger. At least in Tauros cattle, as the crossing-in of Highland cattle has been rather recently while it has been 100 years in Heck cattle. On the other hand, so far, breeding-back cattle have done fine under natural conditions with the coat they have. And perhaps it would be best to create a genetically diverse aurochs-like population with many different alleles for coat phenotypes and let natural selection do the rest.

 

Interesting in this regard are the feral cattle on Sanak island. They descend mainly from Highland cattle, but were exposed to natural selection. Despite the climate on the island, they are not quite as shaggy and long-haired as usual Highland cattle. Perhaps natural selection has reduced the hair length to the maximum that is functional in the given climate. This might make the Sanak island cattle a possible model for the coat of the aurochs, just like Chillingham cattle and OVP Heck cattle.

 

I did a reconstruction of an aurochs based on a skull found in Lake District in England with a coat that I can imagine as one of the plausible possibilities of a more shaggy aurochs during summer. The coat could have been longer or shorter too, without a preserved skin we cannot know for sure, unfortunately.

 

How to rescue Bos taurus taxonomically

I once did a post on why I use Bos primigenius for the species of aurochs and cattle although it is predated by Bos taurus. Opinion 2027 of the ICZN allows this, and it has the advantage that Bos primigenius has a holotype, the incomplete Haßleben skeleton, while Bos taurus neither has a holotype nor a lectotype. However, I am not completely satisfied with that solution, because the fact that it is up to the author’s preference can create a lot of confusion. Apart from that, Bos taurus is the first name under which the aurochs was taxonomically classified (Linnaeus mentions it explicitly as “ferus Urus” in his description), so it should not end up on the taxonomical graveyard and it is questionable if opinion 2027 actually applied because the aurochs was included in the description. But how to clear up the mess and create a clear situation on what name to use for the species?

 

I see two options:

- The ICZN publishes a regulation for handling wildtypes and domesticates as different species. In this case, domestic cattle would be Bos taurus and Bos indicus, and the aurochs Bos primigenius.

- Someone does a proper redescription of Bos taurus, with a lectotype that is a “ferus Urus”, an aurochs and a few paratypes to account for the variability within the species, wild and domestic.

 

The upper option would not be useful. A universal species definition does not exist, and good arguments can both be made for the stance that domesticates are the same species as their wildtype and for the stance that they are different species. But the case of cattle shows that the latter is not practicable. Since taurine and indicine cattle descended from different variants of aurochs, they cannot form one species together that excludes the aurochs. In this case, all three (aurochs, taurine and indicine cattle) would have to be classified as separate species. Sanga cattle, which are hybrids of taurine and indicine cattle, would then be species hybrids. Hybrids between two species that only have minor differences and would without doubt be classified as one species if one did not know their evolutionary history. So the first option would be somewhat absurd.

The second option is what I would opt for. Linnaeus’ description of Bos taurus as much as Bojanus’ description of Bos primigenius are both rather minimalistic by modern standards, so a clear description that accounts for all the autapomorphies of the species of aurochs and cattle that sets them apart from other Bovini would be useful. As a lectotype (which is the type specimen assigned to a species based on a written description alone) I would use the rather complete skeleton from Neumark-Nord, which is mounted an impressive attacking pose (this one). It is very well-preserved, a typical aurochs and there is no chance that it is intermixed with domestic cattle as it is roughly 200.000 years old. I would also chose a few other specimen as paratypes, namely the Sassenberg cow (to account for the differences between male and female) and the Prejlerup bull (to cover the wide range of horn sizes within the species) and perhaps a few others.

 

The species of aurochs and cattle would then have to be labelled as Bos taurus. I think this name is just as beautiful as B. primigenius, as it just means “cattle” and it would include the wildtype which we call “aurochs”. On a subspecies level it would get a bit more complicated. If you regard domesticates as taxa (which doesn’t necessarily have to be, you could also just see them as populations that have experienced artificial selection), taurine cattle would be Bos taurus taurus and indicine cattle Bos taurus indicus, the aurochs would be Bos taurus primigenius. This would raise the question if the wild mainland aurochs needs to be subdivided into different subspecies. The latest research makes the approach of having several mainland aurochs subspecies questionable at least. I think “morphes” or “stages” might be more practicable. I go over this in my upcoming book, so please stay tuned.

 

The weird proto-aurochs from the Pleistocene of India

I actually wanted to include this in my upcoming book – which will be published soon – but it turned out to be too speculative for my taste. It is about this skull from the Middle Pleistocene of India: 

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As you can see, the horns are very wide-ranging, but unfortunately not preserved completely. In order to get a more complete picture of what the horns might have looked like in life, I sculpted a little head bust in trophy-style to reconstruct the horns three-dimensionally.

I only know a couple of photos of this skull, of which none are in a clear profile shot, but I was able to replicate the horn cores rather exactly based on the photos. Then I sculpted the horn sheaths over them. This is the result:

While the actual morphology of the head and horns is based on osteological evidence, the colour is entirely speculative. As these Middle Pleistocene aurochs are very likely outside the taurine + indicine clade, I played a bit with my fantasy regarding the colour. It could well be possible that it had the “standard” aurochs colour, especially considering the fact that Java banteng have an almost identical colour to the “standard” colour.

All in all, based on what I have seen from Bos acutifrons so far, I think the idea that there was a morphological continuum from acutifrons to namadicus to primigenius is not far-fetched. Interestingly, the earliest record of aurochs is currently from Tunisia. In the Early Pleistocene in Africa, there was another species of catte that had, just like acutifrons, large and very wide-ranging horns as well, Bos buiaensis. I think it is not entirely impossible that acutifrons and buiaensis were conspecific and ranged across two continents (just like primigenius) and gave rise to the aurochs. But without any genetic information, which would also be needed from Leptobos, Epileptobos and Pelorovis, it is impossible to resolve the exact origins of the aurochs – at least currently.

 

So, was namadicus a distinct species, Bos namadicus, or a subspecies of Bos primigenius? This question is, in the lack of a clear species definition, impossible to answer and thus is up to the author’s preference. Another problem is that since species evolve gradually, that “transitional forms” and “real species” are just arbitrary categories based on the time we live in, which we choose as an arbitrary anchor. If species A evolves into species B, and species B into C, the transitional species between B and C would be regarded as a “true” species for its time, and would relate to the transitional species from A to B like a “true” species, making A, B, and C merely “transitional” forms. We can expand that problem even further. Species A and C, if they would for some reason meet each other, might not be able to reproduce with each other, but the species B can reproduce with both of them, making A, B and C one ring species across time. We could trace that back to the very ancestors of all life. The species concept does not work across time, I think. Just some thoughts.