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H eck cattle is not a revived aurochs, that’s no secret to those who are familiar with this subject. It is also far from being a perfect optic copy. In the past, I heavily criticised the work of the Heck brothers because of that – but how bad or good was their work really? Did they do their best their possibilities allowed back then, or where sloppiness, a lack of knowledge and care the reason why Heck cattle “failed” the goal to mirror the aurochs in optical sense? In this post, I try to evaluate if the Heck brothers could have done better considering their time and abilities, if they made some crucial mistakes and what is positive from modern perspective.   First of all, we have to define what the Heck brothers had to do executing their project, and then analyse how well they did it and if they could have done better. For the ideas, thoughts, statements and actions of the Heck brothers given in this text, see Cis van Vuure 2005 and Walter Frisch 2010. The latter source also inclu...

T here is an experience that I had made several times already; when I look at an individual and think "well, it does look quite aurochs-like", but when I visualize it in direct comparison with what an aurochs would look like, some noticeable differences become evident. That was the case when I attempted another aurochs reconstruction by manipulating a photo of Londo, a Taurus bull introduced here . Londo is the son of Lamarck, one of the best Taurus bulls to date, and does not look that bad (photo courtesy of Margret Bunzel-Drüke):  I used this photo and increased the leg length until aurochs-like proportions are reached, changed the body shape to a slender-waisted one as in other wild bovines, and created the shoulder hump the aurochs had. Subsequently, I replaced Londo's head with that of 01 856 , which I slightly edited. Then, I painted aurochs-like horns. I think the result is pretty accurate. And now, see how much Londo actually differs from what we think a bull auro...