sutton026

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...

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...

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...