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[edit] errors

The African cattle are thought to descend from aurochs more closely related to the Near Eastern ones.

that line in the article is ambigious or should be explained more. how is aurochs related to near eastern ones when near eastern ones were what european cattle came from but did not come from aurochs

"The aurochs or urus (Bos primigenius) was a very large type of cattle that was prevalent in Europe until its extinction in 1627." "prevalent...until extinction..." Suggest a mass extinction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.100.174.11 (talk) 01:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus, Bos primigenius primigenius, Bos primigenius namadicus, and Bos primigenius mauretanicus, all of these are wrong from what I've found on other websites, it is actually "Bos taurus primigenius" and the same with the rest of them(aka, the species is "taurus")

[edit] Bison

I think we can assume a Wisent is a Bison? sjc

Public domain image of a Bison from Webster's Dictionary 1911

Actually, it might be that bison that still lives in the Polish hunting reserve...JHK

We are on the right track here, a Wisent is Bison bonasus... sjc

Doesn't everyone agree that this image (left) does not belong on this page? Any defenders? Wetman 21:17, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The bison image came back (an editor who hasn't read this Talk page apparently) and has had to be reverted. --Wetman 01:05, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

It is spelled "Aurochs" in Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition. (German Auerochs, Old High German O.H.G. urohso ur- )

Yahoo powered by google shows : Auroch= appr 1700 x Aurochs= appr 3600x Auerochs , the German spelling shows = website zoologie, tu (University) Munich forrest http://zoologie.forst.tu-Muenchen.de/HEITLAND/BSWT/MAMMALIA/UNGULATA/BOVIDAE/BOS/bos.primigenus.html This site states that the last on lived in Masuren Masuria ,not Poland . - user:H.J.

user:H.J., you are correct that it is aurochs, both singular and plural. I will move this now. By the way, the link you have above does not work for me. Paul Drye

Further detail on the Auroch or Aurochs thing -- the "S" on the end is an artifact. "Ochs" as in "Ox" not "more than one Och". It's an "Aur Ox", to use modern spelling. Though, no, the plural is not "Aur Oxen" :) -- Paul Drye

--In fact the modern german name is Auerochse, not Auerochs, with the plural Auerochsen.

A belated bit of follow-up: There is apparently a natural variation among many German n-nouns whereby the terminal -e (/ə/) may be emically present or absent depending on regional dialect. Thus either der Ochs (-en, -en) or der Ochse (-n, -n). In Hochdeutsch it is codified as present. Of course etically this difference matters very little. But this small difference is why I showed the German nominative form in the article as Auerochs/Auerochse. — Lumbercutter 21:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the etymology of the name and relation to the modern word "Ox" is interesting enough to go into the body of the article. --Alan Millar

[edit] Geography Discussion

Ok -- I think it has been mentioned above that Aurochs might be the correct name. BUT DAMMIT, DON'T EVEN START WITH THE MASURIA IS PRUSSIA STUFF. IN 1627 IT WAS BLOODY POLAND, ALL RIGHT??? I ACTUALLY READ THE STUFF ON THREE WEBSITES. THE SOURCE IS FROM MASURIA, BUT THE AUTHOR IS A MEMBER OF THE POLISH COURT, TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN POLAND. THE KING OF POLAND RESERVED THE RIGHT TO BE SOLE HUNTER OF THE AUROCHS. THE AUROCHS ONLY LIVED IN THE POLISH ROYAL FOREST. IT WAS NOT IN PRUSSIA AT THE TIME THE LAST AUROCHS WAS KILLED, NOR FOR AT LEAST A COUPLE OF CENTURIES BEFORE. Please, for my sanity, stop trying to assert that all of northern central Europe is, was, and always has been Prussia. It isn't, wasn't, and has at times been. That's the best you can prove. Boundaries change. JHK

You did not read it all. When you do, you can ask the tu, Munich, I stated what they have stated Masuren, and not Masovia or Masovien. That is why I asked the question on /talk. user:H.J.

I think you missed the point... sjc

Gee, I dunno, user:H.J.. Maybe because the whole bloody article is written in German? In English it is always written Masovia. In 1627, Masovia or Masuren or whatever it is in whatever language you like, WAS IN POLAND. The Aurochs died in the Polish King's private hunting grounds -- were they in Prussia? I think not.JHK

Time for a cup of tea, JHK? Or something a little stronger? :-) sjc

Sorry , Masuren or Masurenland , Masurische Seen Platte (English Masovia) always has been and is in southern part of Prussia, to the north of Masovia. user:H.J.

Let me get this straight, user:H.J....you are saying here, absolutely, in front of God (or gods or any other appropriate NPOV deity or lack thereof) and all your fellow Wikipedians, that Masovia or, in German Masuren, has NEVER been within the official borders of the Kingdom (or any other type of government in its history) of Poland? Think carefully -- what credibility you have left depends upon your answer...JHK

JHK , you do not show that you have contacted the website to clear if they meant Masovia, while they state Masuren .

user:H.J.

The link is wrong. The hunting reserve where the last aurochs was killed was just outside Warsaw. The royal forest of Jaktorów to be precise. Very much in Masovia. -- Paul Drye

To Paul Drye If it was just outside of Warsaw, it is correct to say Masovia. Where did you read this ? Please let me know. Thank you user:H.J.

I found it in a few places on the web. For some reason most of them are in French, but an English one is:

  http://www.aristotle.net/~swarmack/aurohist.html

If you can read French, one of the better ones is:

  http://www.gramat-parc-animalier.com/fiches/domestique/aurochs.htm

--Paul Drye

Thanks,Paul, I just found it on aristotle. It says that the last aurochs died of natural cause user:H.J.

Yes, there seems to be a split of opinion as to whether the last one was shot or just died. I tend to believe the paper on Aristotle, as it seems quite well researched, but I'm trying to find a few more sources in the hopes of clearing it up. -- Paul Drye

Remember... when all seems bad, remember that everything2's primary writeup on Aurochs ( http://www.everything2.com/?node=aurochs ) is about Magic: The Gathering! But it's interesting to note that Webster 1913 seemed to believe Aurochs were ' nearly exinct'...

Thank you, both of you , I had heard about the 're-creation' (early zoology) and continuation of the Aurochs.

I am glad that you pointed me to the everything2 site, especially that my best search engine sofar http://www.webtop.com just went down the drain. user:H.J.

Small clarification here, and an apology for yelling. When I revised the Auroch entry, I revised it after reading that the last Aurochs was killed in Masovia. Didn't even notice that the original entry had the wrong place altogether. It didn't occur to me at the time that the usual "it was in Prussia" discussion had been sidetracked by the misinformation that this happened in an entirely different province -- one that is in Prussia -- than the one I was talking about, which is in Poland. Apologies to Sensible Wikipedians like Paul Drye for jumping at shadows...JHK

[edit] Cave Paintings

Ancient cave dwellings show rock paintings and carvings of magical strength connected with the aurochs.

I happen to agree with this. However, I can't figure out how we "paint or carve magical strength". We need to rephrase this and put it back. Thanks.

It sounds like a right load of old Aurochs to me too. I will see whether we can't paint or carve this magically into shape... sjc

In these and many other early art-works, the aurochs are attributed with possessing magical qualities.

How the heck are we supposed to infer this from cave paintings? Maybe the artists meant to attribute the aurochs with being very organized, or attractively shaped, or well worth the effort of barbecuing.

They are certainly not worth barbecuing: they have been in the freezer far too long. Frankly, my take is this: they are painted ergo they are worthy of representation. If they are merely attributed (etc), this covers most of the bases since we don't need to get into long and tedious discussions about the role of the palaeolithic hunter/magician nor the converse view that the paintings were nothing to do with magic whatsoever but were in fact the palaeolithic equivalent of car mags, depicting things that men like looking at in their spare time. sjc

Well, long, but not everyone would find them "tedious", though I don't mean to have the conversation here. It's just that people can be pretty blithe about saying what art from other cultures means, with paleolithic art a great example of this. Have a good on:Does my edit of this cave paintings passage satisfy the reasonable objections? Wetman 05:42, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The Bison Image Again

Alan -- All of the websites I checked pretty uniformly said the Aurochs looked like the Lascaux cave paintings. The modern re-creation also looks like that. I think the picture from the 1911 source might be wrong -- it looks more like pictures of the Wisent to me. Would it be ok to remove it? JHK

Yes, the picture I found is not Bos primigenius, it is Bison bonasus.

Unfortunately, Webster's 1911 referred to Bison bonasus as the aurochs. It looks like the more up-to-date usage is that aurochs is Bos primigenius, and wisent is Bison bonasus. Does that sound right? --Alan Millar

That's what I found...JHK

That picture looks more like a bison than the beasties that are in the cave paintings and in the Minoan bull-vaulting paintings -- are you sure it's an aurochs? -- Marj Tiefert 13:35 Jul 31, 2002 (PDT)

Yep, that picture is a bison. Fred Bauder

Correct. The illustration from Webster we've been showing here at Aurochs is an American, not even "Lithianian", bison. I'm sitting with Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory under my elbow, the part about the royal bison of Bialowieza, and a painting by Roeland Savary illustrating it.Wetman 14:58, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Urus

Urus redirects here at the moment, but without explanation. It is apparently the Gothic name of the animal. I would like to change the redirect to Ur (rune) (or give an explanation here). dab (ᛏ) 09:57, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction?

From the first paragraph: However, this scientific name is now considered invalid by ITIS, who classify aurochs under Bos taurus, the same species as domestic cattle.

Later: Domestication caused dramatic changes to the physiology of the creatures, to the extent that domestic cattle must now be regarded as a separate species (see above).

I don't know which of the two is correct; could someone sort it out and correct the article accordingly?

[edit] Aurochs interest

Dear all, I appreciate your interest in aurochs, because for many years I studied this bovine species; its history, morphology and ecology were all part of my study. That is why I can inform you that aurochs and European bison are two different bovine species. The first one is extinct, the other is still alive. The last aurochs lived in the Forest of Jaktorów, a royal forest near Warsaw, in the Province of Masovia (Poland). Masuria, in the Northeast of Poland, formerly was Prussian area, afterwards conquered by the Germans and nowadays Polish. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate about asking me. --Cheers, Cis

Hi Paul, The site I gave is partly in Dutch and partly in English. I have changed the introduction path. The (partial) English text is the following:

'This site provides information about the research into the history, morphology and ecology of the aurochs (Bos primigenius) by Cis van Vuure. After a many years’ research, the writing started in April 1998 and ended in April 2000. Eventually in 2003, we managed to publish this research in the form of a nice, illustrated (Dutch) book. Finally we found Pensoft Publishers willing to publish the English version, entitled ‘Retracing the aurochs – history, morphology and ecology of an extinct wild ox’. Halfway this year the book will be available. If you are interested in it and want to be put on the mailing list, please send me an email'.

This is not a commercial book, at least not for me: I spent so much money and effort that I shall never be compensated completely for it. This book tells the comprehensive story about all aspects of the aurochs and its relatives, and also of Heck cattle, the so-called bred-back aurochs. This was the only way to research and unmask all those mysteries around the aurochs.

--Best wishes, Cis

[edit] Error

"According to the Paleontologisk Museum, University of Oslo, aurochs evolved in India some two million years ago, migrated into the Middle East and further into Asia, and reached Europe about 250,000 years ago."

False. Aurochs reached Germany and northern Europe about 250,000 years ago, but they occurs in the Iberian Peninsula since 700,000 years ago or more. Indeed, inmediate ancestor of aurochs, Bos acutifrons, lived in India, but the first Bos taurus primigenius are from central Spain. Please, visit this link:

http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/speciesinfo/aurochs.htm

Regards, a visitor.

That is indeed an error. I've edited the URL in the previous post here on this page. The old URL will be gone soon. That page is part of my website (The Extinction Website). The main source for the information on my website about the aurochs was and is the research done by Cis van Vuure. Personally I have the Dutch version, but the English version has become available this year. I can recomment this book to everyone who is interested in the aurochs. I personally have not seen such a complete and comprehensive work on the aurochs before. You can visit the website of Cis van Vuure at: RESEARCH INTO THE AUROCHS.

Pmaas 20:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Binomial name Error

The page says as binomial name the following: Bos taurus Bojanus, 1827. This is of course incorrect as it than should be Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758. Bojanus named the aurochs: Bos primigenius Bojanus, 1827.

Linnaeus gave the European domesticated cattle breeds its scientific name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758. He knew that the wild ancestor of domesticated cattle breeds had lived in Europe and maybe still lived at the time. We know this because he had classified 'urus' (= aurochs) under the same species name. Linnaeus saw the aurochs and the European domesticated cattle as one and the same species. In the time of Linnaeus the memory of the aurochs was almost completely disappeared. There was some confusion and discussion on the number of wild cattle species that existed in Europe. Like Bojanus, some said that only one species existed, namely the European bison or wisent (Bison bonasus). Others said that there were two species, namely the European bison and the aurochs. In the beginning of the 19th century many bones of aurochs were excavated and one complete skeleton existed. Bojanus named a new species from this skeleton: Bos primigenius Bojanus, 1827. (Van Vuure, 2003)

Nowadays we know that Bos primigenius and Bos taurus belong to the same species, so conform to the Code of the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature was the scientific name of the aurochs Bos primigenius changed into the name given by Linnaeus Bos taurus by Wilson and Reeder in 1993. Some scientists had criticism on this change of the scientific name of the aurochs. They wanted that there would be made an exception for domesticated animals.

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature "conserved the usage of 17 specific names based on wild species, which are pre-dated by or contemporary with those based on domestic forms", confirming Bos primigenius for the Aurochs. Taxonomists who consider domesticated cattle a subspecies of the wild Aurochs should use Bos primigenius taurus; the name Bos taurus remains available for domestic cattle where it is considered to be a separate species. (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 2003)

The aurochs should be named as subspecies: Bos primigenius namadicus (Falconer, 1859), Bos primigenius mauretanicus (Thomas, 1881) and Bos primigenius primigenius (Bojanus, 1827). Pmaas 14:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Size

How big was an aurochs? weight-wise? And how much bigger than domestic cow was it? Baiter 05:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The aurochs was much larger than the domesticated cows of now (the different breeds differ in size). Previously people thought that the shoulder height of an aurochs bull was approximately 200 cm and that of a cow 180 cm (Herre, 1953). Now scientists have calculated on the basis of the length of the humerus (upper leg bone) that the shoulder height of an aurochs bull probably varied between 160 and 180 cm, and that of an aurochs cow around 150 cm. [1] Pmaas 16:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks... but that doesn't say anything about weight. I'm under the impression some domesticated bulls weigh 1000kg. Can an aurochs really have weighed more than that? What about a cape buffalo? Baiter 22:12, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

From reading the book on Cis van Vuure's research into the aurochs (2002,2003 & 2005), I can say the following: About the weight, Matolcsi (1970) and Bergstrom & Van Wijngaarden-Bakker (1983) have tried to find a relation between the weight of certain bones of domesticated cattle and its total weight. However, this relation showed very influenced by age, breed and/or food condition. So it was hard to predict a weight. Even if it worked (on these fresh bones) it is hard to say, that it would have worked on the (sub)fossil bones of the aurochs. When we look to the weight of the Wisent (European Bison) and the Banteng, than we see that wisent cows vary in weight between 320 to 540 kg end wisent bulls between 530 and 920 kg. Hoogerwerf (1970) mentiones that Banteng bulls have a weight between 500 and 900 kg. So the weights vary extremely! If the aurochs had also a similar weight, seems likely when we look to their size! However, it remains speculative! We can't be sure! Pmaas 09:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the informed response. Baiter 15:50, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

should not thins information be included in the artcle? --Dia^ 16:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edits

Removed a duplicate copy of an entry on this page. CFLeon 05:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reconstruction of the Aurochs

In the article there is no mention of the reconstruction attempt of the auroch by the two German brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck in the '20. See the French page about the Heck's auroch for more info. In the Spanish, Italian, French and German pages about the auroch, the reconstruction attempt is always mentioned, it would be nice to see it here too. --giandrea 20:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Heck cattle used to be mentioned here, too. --Wetman 21:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] genetic origin of domestic cattle

Just read a newspaper article about the genetic origin of European domestic cattle: surprisingly, they all seem to derive from Middle Eastern rather than European (auerochs?) ancestors. Obviously, there must have been substantial migration involved. The relevant scientific article (which I cannot access) is:

Edwards CJ et al., 2007. Mitochondrial DNA analysis shows a Near Eastern Neolithic origin for domestic cattle and no indication of domestication of European aurochs. Proceedings Royal Society B 274:1377-1385

Via google search also found this related blog entry:

http://agro.biodiver.se/2007/05/european-aurochs-dna-in-domestic-cattle/

Might be of sufficient interest to warrant mentioning. HeinzT 11:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link from Wired article

On June 8, 2007 an article in Wired magazine linked to this Wikipedia article. [2] --67.160.249.60 03:11, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Silly "Trivia"

The cultural history section as such is good, but I do not understand why people always feel the urge to add all sorts of junk on pop, games and what not to reasonably good articles. That stuff is silly and repelling. If I want information on an interesting animal species, and a most impressive one as well, I don't want the article soiled by all this nonsense. It is repelling. Keep your own web site on such trivia for anyone who want to waste their time with such stuff, but do not molest the general public with it, and under the label "Encyclopaedia" (which has an honourable tradition in Europe); that amounts to label cheating.147.142.186.54 (talk) 14:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bronze Age or 1627

Up top, the article says Aurochs died off in the 1600s, but the domestication+extinction part says the Bronze Age. I believe there's a major difference in time there. 150.209.147.215 (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How big was the aurochs REALLY

The article gives two different figures for height (at the withers): 1.75 meters and 2 meters. I do not know which of these is correct? Marked it as contradictory for now. -Stian (talk) 14:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Who is (or are) MWU?

Call me an oik if you like, but who is the authority referenced in the line "The declension auroch (sg), aurochs (pl), acknowledged by MWU"? Is it Miniatures Wargaming Union? mixedwrestlingusa.net? Or the mwu.eb.com of Webster's Third New International Dictionary Unabridged? Nuttyskin (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

See under "References" at M. — ¾-10 22:36, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Hitler

I read in a paper, albeit The Sun, that Hitler brought back aurochs, or a similar animal?

That would be Heck cattle. --Charles (talk) 12:56, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Copyrights

http://oddee.com/item_88742.aspx I think tha's a copyrights infrigment.Plushy (talk) 21:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me like they're making clear (enough) where they got their info from. In each heading there's "[Wiki]", which links to the Wikipedia article. It's not as clear as it ought to be, but I think that's their way of citing their source (which in this case is Wikipedia). They appear to be a site that collates and abstracts odd info from multiple sources, including WP, and it appears to be OK upon cursory overview. — ¾-10 01:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Complete skeleton?

Does such a thing, or a full-scale reconstruction thereof, exist? If it does, I think this article would benefit greatly from a picture of it with humans or some other comparison object so as to better gauge its actual size, since it's apparent that a bovine the size of a small elaephant is difficult for many of us to picture. Since they didn't go extinct until the 17th Century CE this doesn't seem out of the question? Wormwoodpoppies (talk) 23:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

There is already an image of a complete mounted skeleton in the article, but yeah, a size comparison could be nice. FunkMonk (talk) 23:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Vuure, Bible and Hecks

Currently the Hecks cattle is not referenced in this or its main article (please check the sources), the bible is quoted in the last section of this article about how translations confused "aurochs" with "unicorn" for a long time and before claiming there are no sources or that a source does not support the information on the article you should find the nearest [3] and check it. ~ R.T.G 22:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

And note the ref above is the one concerning Vuure and various other aspects of aurochs and many species extint or endangered. ~ R.T.G

Also note the source quotes the original release date of Vuures research (2003) but the one quoted on the article is the English language version (2006) ~ R.T.G

The Heck cattle are indeed covered: see Aurochs#Attempts at breeding back.

A bit of confusion about "fact" queries in WP. Placing such a query does not necessarily imply doubt that a fact is true (though it often does) or that there are no refs – the tag is requesting a ref, as indicated by what appears in the text: "citation needed".

The Bibical thing seems plausible, but the Agricultural History ref is mediocre at best. It's very old (1952), not primary (it refers to an earlier author), and uses out of date taxonomy and phylogeny (it talks about Bos brachyceros as a separate ancestor of domestic cattle, now a discredited idea). Not even clear if it's a refereed paper or just a letter. We need much more modern, academic refs for this – and anyway, the meaning of a particular word in the Hebrew Bible is always going to be guesswork. Richard New Forest (talk) 13:45, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Avoidance of italic for use–mention distinction only when lang="en": Pros? Cons?

This article was recently changed to that model. I'm not sure it's preferable to the model of using italic for all use–mention distinction (of any language), with quote marks being reserved for sense definitions. For example: The word appreciate in everyday speech most often means "to recognize with gratitude", but prescriptivists should not insist on limiting it only to that one sense; it also means "to take due notice of", that is, "to be duly aware of the significance of". However, I could appreciate (ha) any good arguments in favor of this model. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't seem to be consistent. We have 'the word aurochs comes from...', which uses italics for a mention of the English word. Then we have 'The use in English of the plural form "aurochsen" is not...', and 'English "ox" and "oxen" '. All of these are mentions too, but have quotes instead. Later we have uses in quotes too: 'literally meaning "primeval ox" or "proto-ox" '. I too prefer the convention of italics for mentions and quotes just for defs, but whatever we do it should be consistent.

Incidentally, I can't see the point of using the language template for English words on the English wiki – is that a WP convention I'm unaware of? Richard New Forest (talk) 20:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] See also

I noticed how bare the See also section is so I searched for Aurochs on the wiki and went through each article with possible merit. It turned out that there was more than a hundred with some relation or cultural notability. I know 50 links is over doing it on any article but with so many connective articles for this one, I don't know which ones are best so I didn't add even one to the article but I did list the ones that were directly related or culturally related to the aurochs - User:RTG/Aurochs see also Some are ridiculous but most do have an interesting connection ~ R.T.G 17:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

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