It took me a few weeks to finish it, but I finally have finished the sketches of what the skeletons of several aurochs-like domestic bulls might look like by inferring from the living animal, and I added a skeletal drawing of the Prejlerup bull in what I consider an anatomically correct posture.
1. The Prejlerup bull in an anatomically correct posture
I used the photo of the Prejlerup bull in profile view to draw a skeletal drawing in a more natural position, by measuring piece by piece and putting it in exactly the same position as in the Tauros bull skeleton sketch I posted weeks ago. This is the result:
As you can see, the sketch looks quite different from the mount. The mount looks more spectacular by a) having the hindlegs bent too much and b) the spine in a too horizontal position, making the hump appear larger than it was. The latter aspect is something I overlooked in many of my previous reconstructions, most notably this one. The Prejlerup bull is still rather short-trunked, and also the largest complete skeleton of European aurochs that we have (at least as far as I am aware of). Life reconstruction of the “new” skeletal position is about to come.
2. The bull skeleton sketches compared to the Prejlerup bull
Additionally to the inferred skeleton of the Tauros bull I posted weeks ago, I did the same for the Heck bull Albatros, the Taurus bull Köpcös as much as for a Lidia and Chianina bull. Here are the sketches compared to the Prejlerup bull:
What becomes apparent when looking at the skeletal sketches is not only the well-known differences in proportions (longer trunk, shorter legs, smaller head) but also the depth of the ribcage. While the Chianina and Heck bulls have the least deep ribcage, possibly due to indicine influence in both breeds (Watussi in Heck), the Taurus, Tauros and Lidia bulls are better in this regard, but still not as deep as in the aurochs. What is also surprising is that the Heck skeleton and the Chianina skeleton look quite similar in proportions in having a small head, a very shallow ribcage and not that large of a hump; except for trunk length, where the Chianina is of course built shorter.
Now let’s look at trunk length. As you know, I measure trunk length as the upper margin of the shoulder blade down to the hooves for height and the length from the anteriormost point of the humerus to the posteriormost point of the pelvis. That way I circumvent that hump size, i.e. height of the shoulder spines, can vary considerably and thus would give wrong results. I divide the trunk length by shoulder height. These are the results:
1. Prejlerup (1: 1,05)
2. Taurus (1: 1,13)
3. Tauros (1: 1,15)
4. Chianina and Lidia (1: 1,17)
5. Heck (1: 1,27)
Therefore, the aurochs has the shortest and Heck the longest trunk of this selection; this is nothing new. What may be surprising is that Lidia and Chianina have the same ratio. Chianina are generally described as a long-legged breed and Lidia as a short-legged breed. The solution to this apparent paradox is that Lidia have a deep ribcage, while Chianina have a very shallow ribcage, giving the illusion of super-long legs.
So, who’s the winner of the domestic bulls in terms of aurochs-likeness? I would say both Köpcös and the dutch Tauros bull. Their skeletons resemble the Prejlerup bull pretty much in terms of proportions and are within aurochs variation (as already noted, the Prejlerup bull is particularly short-trunked). Actually, all of the bulls with the exception of the Heck bull are within aurochs variation, as the ratio of the skeletons mounted goes from 1:1,05 to 1:1,19, the “longest” being the Cambridge specimen. Lidia and Chianina are at the upper end of the spectrum, Köpcös and Tauros in the solid mean I would say.
However, there is a huge caveat to this method I employed for this post: first of all, using only one photo per bull can be misleading due to camera angle. The same individual can look quite different on different photos. Also, trying to infer the actual robustness of the individual bone elements, f.e. the cristae and fossae for muscle attachments, does not work by looking at the living animal. Only the proportions and the angle of the elements to each other can be inferred with some degree of certainty. And lastly, there is considerable variation within aurochs-like breeds, selecting single individuals really only tells us about those particular individuals. I am sure I can find a Heck bull that is within the aurochs trunk length range and also Tauros and Taurus individuals that are not.
But until we have assembled skeletons of aurochs-like cattle to compare with aurochs skeletons, these sketches are the best I have for this purpose.
A rigorous comparison of the skeletons of aurochs-like breeds and aurochs would be necessary anyway, I recently doubt the notion that aurochs skeletons are more robust with better muscle attachments than those of the domestics – but more on this in an upcoming post.
3. updated life reconstruction
You know me, I could not resist doing a new aurochs life reconstruction. I did a sketch of the Store-damme skeleton with the same method and reconstructed the soft tissue around it, looking at contemporaneous aurochs depictions for guidance. I think the result resembles the cave engraving from Dordogne pretty close. I am not 100% comfortable with the somewhat “domestic” looking trunk yet, but it is compatible with the evidence.
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