page_title: Aurochs
section_title: Habitat and distribution
hierarchical_section_title: Aurochs / Habitat and distribution
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Elsbruch bei Saarmund, Brandenburg
context_page_description: The aurochs, also known as urus or ure, is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited Asia, Europe, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle. The species survived in Europe until 1627, when the last recorded aurochs died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland.
  During the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred during the early Holocene, at least two aurochs domestication events occurred: one related to the Indian subspecies, leading to zebu cattle, and the other related to the Eurasian subspecies, leading to taurine cattle. Other species of wild bovines were also domesticated, namely the wild water buffalo, gaur, wild yak and banteng. In modern cattle, many breeds share characteristics of the aurochs, such as a dark colour in the bulls with a light eel stripe along the back, or a typical aurochs-like horn shape.
context_section_description: No consensus exists concerning the habitat of the aurochs. Van Vuure points out that throughout much of the last few thousand years European landscapes probably consisted of dense forests, and as such the aurochs were confined to open areas in marshlands along rivers. Comparisons of the ratios of certain mineral isotopes in recovered bones of aurochs from the Mesolithic with domestic cattle has shown they lived in floodplain forests or marshes, areas much wetter than in which modern domesticated cattle live. According to the author such cattle were not able to create and maintain open landscapes without the help of man. While some authors propose that the habitat selection of the aurochs was comparable to the African forest buffalo, others describe the species as inhabiting open grassland and helping maintain open areas by grazing, together with other large herbivores. With its hypsodont jaw, the aurochs was probably a grazer and had a food selection very similar to domesticated cattle. It was not a browser like many deer species, nor a semi-intermediary feeder like the wisent. Schneeberger describes that during winter, the aurochs ate twigs and acorns in addition to grasses.
  After the beginning of the Common Era, the habitat of aurochs became more fragmented because of the steadily growing human population. During the last centuries of its existence, the aurochs was limited to remote regions in northeastern Europe.
  At one point, the range of the aurochs was from Europe (excluding Ireland and northern Scandinavia), to northern Africa, the Middle East, India, and Central and East Asia. Until at least 3,000 years ago, the aurochs was also found in eastern China, where it is recorded at the Dingjiabao Reservoir in Yangyuan County. Most remains in China are known from the area east of 105°E, but the species has also been reported from the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau, close to the Heihe River. Fossils have been excavated from Korean Peninsula and Japanese archipelago along with bison.
caption: Floodplain forests like this one in Germany were the aurochs' last refuge during its final centuries of existence.
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