Bos primigenius

The aurochs is an extinct species of bovine, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to 1.8 m in bulls and 1.55 m 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.

Bos primigenius

Marcus Sümnick from Rostock, Germany · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
BosPBDB
Diet
grazer, browserPBDB, for Bovidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Bovidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Mass
1500 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 98 occurrencesPleistocene — about 91 of 98 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 7 of 98 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 11 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 30 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

98 occurrences of Bos primigenius on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

98 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

9 formations

Gebel Silsila-YCS — 24.50°N, 33.00°EUnterer Travertin — 50.95°N, 11.38°EUnterer Travertin — 50.97°N, 11.35°EGabal Silsila — 24.77°N, 32.95°ENubia — 23.00°N, 25.50°ENubia — 16.25°N, 33.75°ELatamne — 35.13°N, 36.75°EDursunlu — 38.28°N, 31.91°EOberer Travertin II — 50.97°N, 11.35°EForest Bed — 52.49°N, 1.53°E

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The named rock units Bos primigenius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 78 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Bos primigenius and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Bos primigenius and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

590 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 98 sites for Bos primigenius, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

51 references

Each of the 98 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 39 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Bos primigenius

Credit
Marcus Sümnick from Rostock, Germany
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No repository was searched for a 3D scan: the genus name is too short to search on without matching most of the record.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itBos through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bojanus 1827)