Aurochs

The aurochs (Bos primigenius; or ; pl.: aurochs or aurochsen; also ure or urus) is an extinct species of bovine, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle (Bos taurus).

With a shoulder height of up to 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) in bulls and 1.55 m (5 ft 1 in) in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocene; it had massive elongated and broad horns that reached 80 cm (31 in) in length.

Its distribution progressively contracted during the Holocene due to habitat loss and hunting.

In the warm Atlantic period of the Holocene, it was restricted to remaining open country and forest margins, where competition with livestock and humans gradually increased leading to a successive decline of the aurochs.

Most fossils in China were found in plains below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Heilongjiang, Yushu, Jilin, northeastern Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, near Beijing, Yangyuan County in Hebei province, Datong and Dingcun in Shanxi province, Huan County in Gansu and in Guizhou provinces.

Ancient DNA in aurochs fossils found in Northeast China indicate that the aurochs survived in the region until at least 5,000 years BP.

The aurochs was widely distributed in North Africa, Mesopotamia, and throughout Europe to the Pontic-Caspian steppe, Caucasus and Western Siberia in the west and to the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in the north.

The last confirmed and widely accepted individual died in Jaktorów forest in Poland in 1627, though some reports suggest it may have survived up to a century later in parts of southeastern Europe.

The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic relationships of the aurochs based on analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes in the Bovini tribe: The cold Pliocene climate caused an extension of open grassland, which enabled the evolution of large grazers.

The last confirmed aurochs herd lived in a marshy woodland in Poland's Jaktorów Forest.

Calibrations using fossils of 16 Bovidae species indicate that the Bovini tribe evolved about 11.7 million years ago.