“They are a little below the elephant in size and ... their strength and speed are extraordinary. They spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied.”
Thus Julius Caesar described the aurochs, an ancient ancestor of domestic cattle which inhabited much of Europe before being wiped out hundreds of years ago.
Today, the only evidence we have for the existence of these great bovines, which stood more than 2m high and weighed more than a tonne, are a few skeletons in museums and several dramatic cave paintings made by Cro-Magnon people tens of thousands of years ago.
Scientists are now attempting to turn back the clock — by resurrecting the aurochs.
A European project has been set up to bring these wild ancestors of modern domestic cattle back from the dead, though the scientists involved stress this will be achieved not by cloning them from ancient DNA, but by crossing existing breeds.
“Basically, it [the aurochs] was a big cow — nearly 2m high at the shoulder, and built vaguely like the love child of the Spanish fighting bull with a dash of Highland cow thrown in to make it hardier,” said researcher Magdalena Michalak of Bryn Mawr college, Pennsylvania.
By taking DNA from these breeds and others, and by examining the ancient DNA of aurochs, preserved in their bones, researchers aim to pinpoint promising species of modern cattle which carry aurochs genes and which can be bred selectively to reproduce an aurochs, a process known as back-breeding.
Project Tauros has been set up at universities in Germany, Poland and Spain where scientists are now sifting through the DNA of modern cattle breeds to find the most promising sections.
It will be a remarkable achievement if successful: The first animal to be brought back from extinction and returned to the wild.
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