Bos Primigenius
Debut: Chapter 47
Bos Primigenius was an ancestor of the present day cows or cattle. It lived in small herds on grassy plains or in the forests. It had a deep connection to humans, and you can also see them drawn on the walls of the lascaux caves in France.
Bos primigenius was a type of large wild cattle which inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct; it survived in Europe until 1627. Aurochs bulls are believed to have reached a height of 1.8 meters at the withers, and the cows to have been about 1.5 meters, displaying considerable sexual dimorphism.
The aurochs was regarded as a challenging hunting quarry animal, contributing to its extinction. The last recorded aurochs, a female, died in 1627 in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland, and her skull is now the property of the Livrustkammaren museum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Domestication of bovines occurred in several parts of the world but at roughly the same time, about 8,000 years ago, possibly all derived from the aurochs. In 1920, the Heck brothers, who were German biologists, attempted to recreate aurochs. The resulting cattle are known as Heck cattle or Reconstructed Aurochs, and number in the thousands in Europe today. However, they are genetically and physiologically distinct from aurochs. The Heck brothers' aurochs also have a pale yellow dorsal stripe, instead of white.
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