page_title: Texas Longhorn
section_title: History of the cattle
hierarchical_section_title: Texas Longhorn / History of the cattle
caption_attribution_description: Texas Longhorn
context_page_description: The Texas Longhorn is a breed of cattle known for its characteristic horns, which can extend to over 70 inches tip to tip for bulls, and up to 100 inches tip to tip for steers and exceptional cows. They are descendants of the first cattle introduced in the New World, brought by explorer Christopher Columbus and the Spanish colonists.
  Descended from cattle that thrived in arid parts of Southern Iberia, these cattle have been bred for a high drought-stress tolerance. Texas Longhorns are known for their diverse coloring, and can be any color or mix of colors, but dark red and white color mixes are the most dominant.
  Registries for the breed include the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, founded in 1964 by the Kerr County rancher Charles Schreiner, III; the International Texas Longhorn Association, and the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry. The online National Texas Longhorn Museum displays the diversity of horns found in the breed, stories about notable individual cattle of the breed, and a gallery of furniture made from cattle horns.
  The longest recorded total-horn-length marks is 129.5 inches, the spread of longhorn M Arrow Cha-Ching.
context_section_description: Genetic analyses show that the Texas Longhorn originated from an Iberian taurine lineage descending from the domestication of the wild aurochs in the Middle East and with some admixture with the European aurochs, and later (while in America) was crossed with "indicine" cattle, descending from the domestication of aurochs in India, 85% and 15%, respectively, by proportion.  
  The Texas Longhorns are direct descendants of the first cattle introduced to the New World. The ancestral cattle were brought by colonizer Christopher Columbus in 1493 to the Caribbean island now known as Hispaniola, to supply food to colonists. Between 1493 and 1512, Spanish colonists brought additional cattle in subsequent expeditions. The cattle consisted of three different breeds; Barrenda, Retinto, and Grande Pieto.  
  Over the next two centuries the Spanish used the cattle in Mexico and gradually moved them north to accompany their settlement. They reached the area that became known as Texas near the end of the 17th century. The cattle escaped or were turned loose on the open range, where they remained mostly feral for the next two centuries.  Over several generations, descendants of these cattle developed to have high feed- and drought-stress tolerance, and other "hardy" characteristics that have gained Longhorns their reputation as livestock.
  Early Anglo-American settlers in East Texas, then part of Mexico, obtained feral Mexican cattle from the borderland between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. They bred them to their own eastern cattle.  The result was a tough, rangy animal with long legs and long horns, extending up to 7 ft. The interbreeding produced changes in color of the breed. The varieties of color ranged from bluish-grey, and various yellowish hues, to browns, black, ruddy, and white, both cleanly bright and dirty-speckled.  
  Portuguese cattle breeds, such as Alentejana and Mertolenga, are the closest existing relatives of Texas Longhorns.
caption: A Texas Longhorn in Fort Worth, Texas
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