What if the aurochs was genetically reconstructed?
T his post plays with the possibility of a genetically resurrected, genuine aurochs. This possibility emerged since a full genome has been resolved in 2015. This animal would be a true aurochs in its original form, not domestic cattle with a number of morphological/optic wildtype traits that might be considered dedomesticated at some remote point of time of natural selection. What to do with such a reconstructed aurochs, and would it make existing “breeding-back” projects unnecessary? Each time it comes to genetically reconstructing an extinct animal, there are people questioning the purpose of doing so. Well, reconstructing a genuine aurochs would of course be for the same purpose of breeding aurochs-like cattle and using it for nature restoration. It serves an ecologic good and is about authenticity. A number of recent posts covered the probable genetic differences between aurochs and domestic cattle, especially this one. I outlined why I believe that we definitely need more than mer...