Aurochs

• GeneralThe wild ancestor of all domestic cattle; the last one died in Poland in 1627.
• Its extinction is one of the first documented in writing with a date and place: the last individual died in the forest of Jaktorów, in Poland, in 1627.
• It appears painted in the caves of Lascaux more than 17,000 years ago, with the horns and shoulder hump perfectly recognisable, and is one of the most frequently depicted animals in Palaeolithic art.
• Its extinction is the first in history to be documented in writing as it happened. The wardens of the Jaktorów forest, in Poland, kept an annual census of the last animals: the last bull died in 1620 and the last cow in 1627.
• The skull of that last female is kept in the Livrustkammaren, the Royal Armoury in Stockholm.
• It was far larger than modern cattle: bulls stood 160 to 180 cm at the shoulder, with maximums around 200, and cows about 150. Pleistocene individuals were on average ten centimetres taller than Holocene ones.
• It appears in the cave paintings of Lascaux, and Julius Caesar described it in the Gallic War.
• It is the wild ancestor of all the world's cattle, domesticated some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago in several places at once.
• The modern breeds created to resemble it, such as Heck cattle, are reconstructions of its appearance, not of the species: they look alike on the outside but do not share its genetic make-up.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (mammal)

Habitat and environment

Open woodland, marshes and wet grassland of Europe, Asia and North Africa

Gestation / incubation

9 months

Litter / clutch size

1

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Bos primigenius