Aurochs - Description

Description

The appearance of the aurochs is reconstructed by skeletal material, historical descriptions or contemporaneous depictions, such as cave paintings, engravings or Sigismund von Herberstein’s illustration. The work by Charles Hamilton Smith is a copy of a painting owned by a merchant in Augsburg, which may date to the 16th century. Scholars have proposed that Smith's illustration was based on a cattle/aurochs hybrid, or an aurochs-like breed. The aurochs was depicted in prehistoric cave paintings and described in Julius Caesar's The Gallic War.

The aurochs was one of the biggest herbivores in postglacial Europe, comparable to the wisent, the European bison. The size of an aurochs appeared to depend on the region: in Europe, northern populations were bigger on average than those from the south. For example, during the Holocene, aurochs from Denmark and Germany had an average height at the shoulders of 155–180 cm (61–71 in) in bulls and 135 to 155 cm in cows, while aurochs populations in Hungary had bulls reaching 155–160 cm (61–63 in). The body mass of aurochs appeared to have showed some variability. Some were comparable to the weights of the wisent or the banteng, reaching around 700 kg (1,500 lb), whereas those from the late-middle Pleistocene were estimated to measure up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb), the top mass of the gaur (the largest extant bovid). The sexual dimorphism between bull and cow was strongly expressed, with the cows being several decimetres shorter than bulls on average.

Because of the massive horns, the frontal bones of aurochs were elongated and broad. The horns of the aurochs were characteristic for the species concerning size, curvature and orientation. They were curved in three directions: upwards-outwards at the base, then swung forwards-inwards, then inwards-upwards. Aurochs horns could reach 80 cm in length and between 10 and 20 cm in diameter. The horns of bulls were larger, with the curvature more strongly expressed than in cows. The horns grew from the skull at a 60° angle to the snout, they are clearly facing forwards. The horn shape of aurochs was an advantage because of the way intraspecific fights were carried out: in contrast to bison, they do not butt their heads against each other; instead, they hook each other with their horns and try to push away the adversary. Modern cattle breeds still exhibit this method of fighting. As a protection for their eyes, the eye sockets of bulls were more strongly pronounced than in most contemporary cattle bulls.

The body shape of the aurochs was strikingly different from many modern cattle breeds. For example, the legs were considerably longer and more slender, resulting in a shoulder height that nearly equalled the trunk length. The skull, carrying the large horns, was substantially larger and more elongated than in most cattle breeds. As in other wild bovines, the body shape of the aurochs was athletic and, especially in bulls, showed a strongly expressed neck and shoulder musculature. Even in carrying cows, the udder was small and hardly visible from the side; this feature is equal to that of other wild bovines.

The coat colour of the aurochs can be reconstructed by using historical and contemporary depictions. In his letter to Conrad Gesner (1602), Anton Schneeberger precisely describes the aurochs, a description that affirms cave paintings in Lascaux and Chauvet. Calves were born in chestnut colour; young bulls changed their coat colour during a few months into a very deep brown or black, with a white eel stripe running down the spine. Cows retained the reddish-brown colour. Typical for both sexes was the lightly coloured mouth, which is also found in some bantengs. Some North African engravings show aurochs with a light-colored "saddle" on the back, but otherwise there is no evidence of a different coat colour of aurochsen in or outside Europe. A passage from Mucante (1596), describing the “wild ox” as gray, is ambiguous and may refer to the wisent. Egyptian grave paintings show cattle with a reddish-brown coat colour in both sexes with a light saddle, but the horn shape of these suggest that they depict domestic cattle. Remains of aurochs hair were not known until the early 1980s.

Some primitive cattle breeds display the coat colour characteristics of the aurochs, including the black colour in bulls with a light eel stripe, a white mouth, and the typical sexual dimorphism in colour. A feature often attributed to the aurochs is blond forehead hairs. Historical descriptions tell that the aurochs had long and curly forehead hair, but none mentions a certain colour for it. Cis van Vuure (2005) says that, although the color is present in a variety of primitive cattle breeds, it is likely a discolouration that appeared after domestication. But he notes that Gaurs have a lightly coloured forehead as well. The gene responsible for this feature has not yet been identified. Zebuine breeds show lightly coloured inner sides of the legs and belly, caused by the so-called Zebu-tipping gene. It has not been tested if this gene is present in remains of the wild form of the zebu, the Indian aurochs.