Cattle

Cattle, Bos taurus, are large domesticated bovid ungulates kept as livestock across most of the inhabited world. They belong to the subfamily Bovinae and are the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Three broad types are recognised: taurine cattle of Europe, temperate Asia, the Americas and Australia; zebu of India and the tropics; and sanga cattle of sub-Saharan Africa. Some authorities treat these as separate species or subspecies, and together they are divided into well over a thousand breeds. People raise cattle for meat, dairy products and leather, and use them as draft animals to pull carts and farm implements, while small breeds such as the miniature zebu are kept as pets. Cattle are held sacred in Hinduism, and killing them is illegal in parts of the Indian subcontinent. Taurine cattle were domesticated roughly 10,500 years ago from wild aurochs in central Anatolia, the Levant and western Iran, with a separate domestication in the Indian subcontinent giving rise to the zebu. The world herd passed 940 million animals by 2022, and cattle farming accounts for about seven percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.