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The last aurochs hybridized with cattle in the wild

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D omestic animals and their wild counterparts are usually able to interbreed freely and produce fertile hybrids. Thus, it is always likely that everywhere they share their habitat, they might interbreed and thus mutually influence their populations. Domestic animals always might escape, and wildtype animals always might leave a track in domestic stock by occasional mating.  When discussing whether aurochs and cattle interbred in Europe, it mostly concerned the question if local aurochs left a genetic trace in cattle populations. The other way round, domestic cattle influencing local aurochs, was not examined yet. However, I have always considered it very likely that escaped domestic cattle left a trace in European aurochs. It happens everywhere where wildtype and domestic type are neighbouring – you see that in wolves (some colour variants, such as black in wolves, are believed to have been inherited from domestic dogs), in wild boar displaying domestic colour, and it has also been...
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Albatros, the Heck bull, vs. aurochs

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W hen looking through Walter Frisch’s  Der Auerochs  (2010) I found a photo of the Heck bull Albatros in perfect profile view (the photo is © Walter Frisch, I hope it is ok for Mr. Frisch that I use it here). Let us have some fun with it!  A profile view photo is pretty useful for a direct comparison with the aurochs. When using a single Heck individual, it is always important to pick one that is a fair representative of the breed. For example, it would not be fair to pick one of the hyper-massive dachshund bulls that are still found in the breed that are not nearly of the same quality as the mean, or to choose an individual that is considerably better than the average. I think that Albatros is a pretty fair choice. It is from the Wörth/Steinberg line bred by Walter Frisch, which is remarkable for having large and well-shaped horns (some of them are excellent, take a look at them here ). The Wörth lineage is, speaking of body morphology and size, very typical for Heck cat...
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From aurochs to cattle: step by step

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I n the post The real differences between aurochs and cattle I go over the organismic differences between the aurochs and cattle in regards to morphology, development, endocrinology, behaviour and genome. Those differences all are interconnected and were caused by the process of domestication. You cannot alter one factor without altering several others at the same time. Each of those factors, like changes in hormonal activity or development, have a particular impact on the organism. With this post, I want to illustrate these impacts by turning a wild aurochs into domestic cattle step by step. I do not say that these changes evolved in this particular order, rather they evolved more or less at the same time but varying extent, this is just a scheme. Please do not use my drawings without permission. This is the starting point, a wild aurochs:  Hormonal changes  Changes in thyroid hormones not only caused a more relaxed, lethargic behaviour but also reduced limb and head size, m...
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What to do with the wisent in the Caucasus?

T he Caucasus mountains were home to another subspecies of wisent,  Bison  bonasus  caucasicus,  until was exterminated in the first half of the 20 th century (it is also considered a separate species by some authors). Nowadays, wisents have been reintroduced in the western Caucasus reserve, and this population is controversial for its special history. In this post I am going to explain why, have a look at the arguments against this population, why I consider it beneficial instead and what to do with it for the future.  First and most importantly it is to note that the modern wisent went through a severe genetic bottleneck event. All modern wisents descend from only 12 founder individuals and thus the genetic basis of the species today is extremely narrow. The consequences of this a considerable inbreeding depression affecting skeletal growth leading to skull asymmetry, deformation of the male gonads, increased rate of stillbirths, decreased female fertility and...
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The Origin of Maronesa

B ack in a 2013 post , I called Maronesa a “relict breed” from Portugal. Not because of an alleged isolated ancient origin, but for its flawlessly aurochs-like colour make-up, the well-expressed sexual dimorphism and the inwards-facing horn curvature.  Now there is a kind of quarrel on the English Wikipedia page regarding the origin of this draft breed. While enthusiasts of the breed claim a separate origin that is strongly influenced by local aurochs, others are convinced that it has its origins among other local breeds and is closely related or descends from Barrosa and Mirandesa. So here is my take-on to this subject based on literature references, old photos and the phenotype of Portuguese cattle breeds.  First off, Maronesa has traditionally been considered a crossbreed of Mirandesa and Barrosa because of historic evidence [3]. It has been considered a mix population until it was categorized as a separate breed in 1835[1]. A genetic study from 1998 found a genetic distanc...
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What can "breeding-back" achieve?

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T he previous three posts ( here , here , here , here  and here ) have explored the borders of “breeding-back”. I give a quick summary. The real differences between aurochs and cattle do not only concern size, coat colour and horns but actually the whole organism: its developmental biology, its endocrinology, its neurology, its behaviour, its morphology, its genome. And all those factors are interconnected and interact in a complicated way. It was probably selection on tameness alone that dramatically changed the organism and the typical traits of a domestic animal (“domestication syndrome”) was more of a by-product. Additionally to that, some new morphologic mutations and artificial selection on certain traits produced the typical domestic phenotype that we see in cattle. The involved number of loci are probably hundreds or more likely thousands. It is very likely that cattle are uniform for these key genes that are responsible for the typical domestic traits that are universal am...
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New aurochs reconstructions

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E very once in a while I do new aurochs reconstructions. Each time I think I finally achieved a reconstruction where I can say "now that's what an aurochs looked like, perfect" I start noticing some imperfections afterwards, thinking "well, this and that detail should maybe be different". It is an interesting phenomenon, maybe I am too much of a perfectionist. I think that the overlap of all my reconstruction might present a good picture of what a living aurochs might have looked like.  Apart from that, the differences in the outcome of the reconstructions also reflects the individual variation within the species. For my most recent reconstructions, I once again choose the two Sassenberg skeletons, bull and cow. The Sassenberg bull, a cast of whose skeleton can be seen here  has extensive tooth wear and probably was an old specimen. The withers height of the skeleton is 165cm according to Frisch 2010, what means that in life it was probably 175cm tall at the wi...
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