Giant Cattle To Be Bred Back From Extinction

Posted by: Audiegrl

Aurochs were immortalized in prehistoric cave paintings and admired for their brute strength and “elephantine” size by Julius Caesar

Aurochs are depicted in ochre and charcoal in paintings found on the walls of cave galleries such as those at Lascaux in France Photo: ALAMY

Telegraph.co.uk/Nick Squires~~But despite their having gone the way of the dodo and the woolly mammoth, there are plans to bring the giant animals back to life.

The huge cattle with sweeping horns which once roamed the forests of Europe have not been seen for nearly 400 years.

Now Italian scientists are hoping to use genetic expertise and selective breeding of modern-day wild cattle to recreate the fearsome beasts which weighed around 2,200lb and stood 6.5 feet at the shoulder.

Breeds of large cattle which most closely resemble Bos primigenius, such as Highland cattle and the white Maremma breed from Italy, are being bred with each other in a technique known as “back-breeding“.

At the same time, scientists say they have for the first time created a map of the auroch’s genome, so that they know precisely what type of animal they are trying to replicate.

“We were able to analyse auroch DNA from preserved bone material and create a rough map of its genome that should allow us to breed animals nearly identical to aurochs,” said team leader Donato Matassino, head of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology in Benevento, in the southern Campania region.

“We’ve already made our first round of crosses between three breeds native to Britain, Spain and Italy. Now we just have to wait and see how the calves turn out.”

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Aurochs are depicted in ochre and charcoal in paintings found on the walls of cave galleries such as those at Lascaux in France Photo: ALAMY

Illustration from Sigismund von Herberstein’s book published in 1556 captioned “I’m ‘urus’, tur in Polish, aurox in German (dunces call me bison)”;

Monument to the last aurochs in Jaktorów, Poland.

Aurochs horn from 200,000 years BP found near Madrid (Spain)

Skull of an aurochs.

This specimen is from around 7500 BC and is one of two very well preserved aurochs skeletons found in Denmark. The circles indicate where the animal was wounded by arrows.

Augsburg depiction of an Aurochs

Heck cattle

Aurochs on a cave painting in Lascaux, France.

An Aurochs fighting a Eurasian Wolf pack