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phan-tom β The Aurochs
Published: 2010-05-22 04:17:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 19252; Favourites: 210; Downloads: 0
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In case anyone is wondering what an Aurochs is, it's the wild ancestor of modern day cattle. They went extinct in 1627.I was reading about them on the internet a few years ago and one of the things I was surprised by is they were actually larger than almost all domestic cattle breeds. They came close to six feet at the shoulder.
There was a theory that the Aurochs could be selectively bred back into existence, since their genes are still in the domestic cattle, and a couple of German zoo keepers tried it back in the 1930's 1940's. They declared success after 12 years, but the animals didn't have the height, and the horns weren't pointed forward like an aurochs, along with a few other traits that were missing. People are still breeding, what became known as Heck cattle, today trying to come closer to the appearance of the aurochs. The tallest one so far is five foot three at the shoulder.
In January I read that a group of scientists in Holland were going to try the breeding back experiment again, but this time they have a map. A genome map to be exact. Maybe they'll succeed this time.
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Comments: 96
Primal cattle breed, majestic, dangerous, and magical.
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Β Fascinating. It's too bad there aren't any left. At least the ancestors of other farm animals and domesticated animals didn't go extinct. Β The wolf (the ancestor of the domestic dog) and the red junglefowl (the ancestor of farm chickens) come to mind.
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The Tauros Project is using multiple breeds of very primitive cattle and cross breeding them and releasing them into other wild. There hope is that eventually all the cattle will interbreed with each other until they revert to the behavior and appearance of their extinct subspecies.
www.eurowildlife.org/wp-contenβ¦
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I've been in contact with the Tauros Project, and they used two of my illustrations in their book.
www.roodbont.nl/en/bookshop/17β¦
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You're welcome!
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Interesting. It looks more agile and limber than the modern Cows that have been ruined by domestication. Almost deer-like.
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Thank you, but this drawing is a bit inaccurate.
It was done by mostly reading about aurochs.
After finishing this I decided to do more in depth studies,using aurochs skeletons.
This one is probably fairly accurate to what they looked like.
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can I just say... BAD ASS BEASTIE. I kinda want one, and then cross it to a beltie. that would be a cool looking bad ass beastie.
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Thank you.
THis particular drawing of an aurochs isn't accurate.
I made quite a few mistakes.
As for crossing one with a beltie, a beltie alreaedy is an aurochs,
only domesticated.
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I have a feeling a Chianina crossed with a fighting bull or a Brahman would get pretty close. Big and tall, pointy horns... basically an auroch ya? ^-^
BTW, how is a beltie and auroch already? they're tiny and hornless and... well oreos on legs...
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All taurine cattle, which includes belties, are domesticated aurochs.
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aaaaaaahhh... huh, i probably knew that -_- darn my sleepy brain -_-
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Have you heard about the TarOs Project in Europe? It's an attempt to successfully crossbreed and selectively breed certain cattle that still retain teh Aurochs-like traits in hopes of reintroducing a restoration animal that is as close as possible to its wild ancestor! I think some German scientists did somethin' similar in "breedbacking" the Tarpan, a truly wild Earoupean horse that was pretty much like a gray version of its last living wild counterpart, the Przewalski's horse of Mongolia.
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Thank you for the 
I was referring to Project Tauros when I wrote "a group of scientist in Holland are going to try the breeding back experiment again, but this time they have a map. A genome map to be exact. Maybe they'll succeed this time."
I think German scientist you're referring to are the Heck brothers who tried to breedback the aurochs, and Tarpan.
The two breeds are the Heck cattle, and Heck horse.
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Yes, it wuz the Heck bros. that I wuz thinking of. And it's good to talk to someone who shares an inteest in endangered and extinct wildlife. Me, myself, have a vey big obsession with the Thylacine since I wuz six. i'd love to see one in real life before i die.
Also, I dont know if you heard, but in a program i saw about the link between dinos and birds, in theory we could possibly retro-engineer a bird into a dinosaur! We've already proven that the genes are just tunred off for certain traits, sucha t teeth, clawed forelimbs, more scales (not just ont eh feet), and much more. Everything birds have, dinosaurs, specifically carnivorous therapods like raptors, had it first.
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There is a forum that talks about this kind of stuff. [link]
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I imagine they'll be able to clone a Thylacine eventually.
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Looks great,its good that they are trying to make a new back-breeded aurochs,because Heck cattle,the only back-breeded breed which is somewhat more common is not good enough,In fact bulls are even very agressive towards humans because they used a Spanish fighting bulls in back-breeding so this would prevent them from rewilding them into wild
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Thank you.
It was Lutz Heck who used fighting cattle for the breeding back experiment.
His cattle did not survive the past the war.
Heinz Heck's cattle are the ones still around, although he said he did use
some of Lutz's cattle in his breeding program. The percentage of Spanish fighting bull
in their heritage is unknown.
Heinz did do some things that most breeders would be horrified by today.
He bred a third generation bull to it's own mother. The resulting calf was the fourth generation of the foundation of todays Heck cattle.
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Maybe you you release wild cattle back into the wild, they'll devovle back. The same happens with pigs.
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Devolving back is a bit more complex. Various cattle have been "rewilded" like the Texas longhorn. Cattle that escaped from ranches and survived on their own for generations, but they didn't devolve back into an aurochs.
There's a Dutch nature reserve where they have taken Heck cattle (The ones that were bred to look like aurochs) and released them. The been there since the early 1980's.
They haven't devolved back either. Here's a Wikipedia article about he reserve.
[link]
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Magnificent artwork, very impressing! I'm working on a pen drawing of all central european large mammals, this is a great help. Did you do it solely on the computer?
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Thank you, and thank you for the
Yes, it was done solely with a computer.
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I think it is pretty amazing what can be done with photo programs, unfortunately I do not have enough experience to do such great artworks like this. Is it possible that you make something like work in progress pictures the next time? That would be cool! Is it possible to do graphics like this with GIMP?
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Actually I have two works in progress for that piece, aurochs, in my scrapbook area.
[link]
I imagine it would be possible to do a finished piece using gimp.
I couldn't say for sure since I never used it.
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Oh sorry I overlooked that. How long did it take you to do this?
Regards
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It's hard to say. I didn't really keep track.
Probably more than 12 hours.
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They look like fighting bulls that are suffering gigantism.
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They were big. Nearly six feet tall at the shoulder.
Thank you for the
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This is the great wild bull that's referenced in the Bible! They were massive and dangerous. Great job!!
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Thank you.
From the accounts I read about the last surviving aurochs, they weren't so aggressive when people stopped hunting them.
My guess is that they were no more aggressive than the American Bison.
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Really? That's so interesting! Isn't it also true that this is the type of bull that the Greek Minotaur was based on?
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The Minotuars father was suppose to be a white bull.(according to Wikipedia) So based on that the bull was white, it would be a domestic bull, and not an aurochs, which were basically black in appearance.
Unless it was an albino aurochs.
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Even though he was white, I always thought the Cretan Bull was based on the wild auroch. This [link] article seems to think so, too. What do you think? As you say, perhaps it could've represented a rare albino auroch? 
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It's hard to say if the Cretan Bull was suppose to be an aurochs. The lines are somewhat blurred since the domestic cattle are actually just selectively bred aurochs. There are also domestic cattle that have gone "wild" like the Chillingham cattle of England. c[link]
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Photo realism? Where?
How's it going Conan?
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Lol! I'm doing great! How about yourself Tom? Haven't talked to "our group" in a long time
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I doing fine.
As for the forum, it's dying. There's hardly anyone over there anymore.
I'm still there, and so is Brendan.
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Man, I really miss the old days when we were all so active and so excited to improve
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