sutton026

I t has become en vogue in contemporary “breeding-back” to claim that their project also involves “genetics” or is based on genetic information, executing “breeding-back” not only on a “phenotypic” basis but on a “genotypic” level, which should lead to a more authentic result. The argumentation is that the original “genes” (simplified language, actually we are talking about alleles) of the aurochs have not been lost during domestication, but split up and mixed with domestic mutations among the modern domestic cattle populations. The goal of “genetic breeding-back” is therefore to trace down these genes among modern cattle and to unite them by crossbreeding and selective breeding in one population. Basically the same as with morphological traits, but more in-depth and concerning the whole organism as genetics are the key determinant for all biological aspects. Therefore, this method should lead to an approximation of the original aurochs and not a mere morphological double. This is the ...

T his is another post that might be rather theoretic and goes pretty deep into genetics and other aspects. What I am trying to do here is to give “breeding-back” a scientific backbone. I am not a scientist of course, but my attempt is to go in-depth with the help of the knowledge that I gained in four years of studying biology at the University of Vienna and all the intense literature research I did and discussions and conversations I partook since I started being interested in “breeding-back” in 2011. And actually I think that I gathered a lot of verifiable information in these years.  Now with this article I am trying to really go deeply into a very important basic matter of “breeding-back”: the differences between aurochs and cattle on a complete, organismic level. It shows that these differences go far beyond differences in horn shape or body size but concern nearly all biological aspects of these animals. This is, in my opinion, very important as it helps to understand what th...

A ctually I don't want to post two teasers in a row but the two posts I have in preparation delay a little bit because of the effort I put in it. They should be comprehensive and well-researched. And I decided to switch the sequence. At first I want to post one on - The organismic differences between aurochs and cattle: A complete comprehensive coverage of all the differences in morphology, physiology, development and genomics that must have been there to deeper understand the different nature of aurochs and cattle and wild and domestic.  after that, it seems logical to cover  - Genetics in breeding-back, whether or not genetic breeding-back is possible and if any of the current projects are doing it.  After that, I want to cover a special dog breed named Tamaskan and its meaning for breeding-back. Also, I want to do a short post on the evolution taking place in Oostvaardersplassen. And, something I did some months ago and want to finally present to the public is  - ...

I am going to start with doing pictures of the day, considering that I have so much material but so little time to put them into practice properly. So for now, a picture of the day.  A while ago I did another post on the Indian aurochs, Bos primigenius namadicus . It also includes a new life restoration. In the post, I go over my anatomical speculations point by point. I have not yet considered the fleshy zebuine hump a probable wildtype trait of the Indian aurochs subspecies because it was not possible to identify any functional purpose for the hump (which is, in fact, a hypertrophied Musculus rhomboideus) in the literature yet. So I did not consider it a probable wildtype trait as it is apparently unfunctional. However, one of my readers pointed out to me that it might have display function.  This idea is actually not that implausible. First off, Bantengs and Gaurs both rely more on display than combat fight than cattle do and as a consequence, they have a shorter and high...

A t the moment I am extremely busy but also extremely motivated to write some more in-depth posts. I have two blogposts in preparation:  - one covering theoretical assumptions on aurochs genes present in living cattle plus what current breeding-back projects are doing in this respect - one covering the organismic differences between aurochs and cattle that must be there based on comparisons with other domesticated species  I think both posts would cover some important aspects that should be discussed in the modern breeding-back world.  I can't promise when I am done with the posts, probably during the following weeks or so. Please stay tuned!