🐂Aurochs
L'aurochs (ou auroch) est une espèce de bovidés, ancêtre des races actuelles de bovins domestiques et dont la descendance sauvage est désormais éteinte. Appartenant au genre Bos, son nom scientifique est Bos primigenius ou Bos taurus primigenius selon les auteurs. Il est également désigné parfois par les noms d'urus ou ure. Menacé par la chasse, les croisements (pollution génétique) et la domestication, la forme sauvage de l'aurochs n'existait plus qu'en Europe de l'Est à partir du XIIIe siècle, avant de s'éteindre dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (le dernier spécimen est mort en 1627 dans la forêt de Jaktorow en Pologne). Entre sa domestication et la disparition de sa forme sauvage, les croisements étaient réguliers en Europe, notamment par la capture d'aurochs femelles. L'aurochs a fait en 1920 l'objet de tentatives de reconstitution par élevage sélectif de races bovines jugées primitives. Les frères Heinz et Lutz Heck créèrent une race s'en approchant appelée « aurochs de Heck », et officiellement nommée de nos jours en France « aurochs-reconstitués », que l'on peut observer aujourd'hui en Europe.
Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
IUCN Red List assessment, 2023.
- Body mass
- 619 kg
- Body length
- 3.1 m
- Shoulder height
- 1.6 m
- Top speed
- not recorded
- Bite force
- not recorded
- Maximum lifespan
- 20 years
This animal is extinct
Assessed Extinct on the IUCN Red List, 2023. Everything on this page — the measurements, the photos, the videos — is a record of an animal that is gone.
Everything we know about the Aurochs
Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.
Body mass619 kgCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Body length3.1 mCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Shoulder height1.6 maverageOther figures ↓Hide ↑
Species-level value synthesised as the mean of: both.
By sex
- Both1.6 mvan Vuure 2002, 'History, morphology and ecology of the aurochs (Bos primigenius)', Lutra 45(1):1-16, https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=7cd5da765261db6b99ce44361fa8078ec7951c42&repid=rep1&type=pdf"...a plausible shoulder height of 160-180 cm in the aurochs bull and ca. 150 cm in the cow result." Paper's summary table gives withers height 170 cm on average (bulls) and 150 cm (cows). Value = midpoint of sex averages; low = cow average, high = bull maximum. Subfossil reconstruction (Matolcsi conversion factors; mounted-skeleton checks after Degerbol & Fredskild 1970), as the brief allows.
Brain mass453 gCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Maximum lifespan20 yearsCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Generation length8.2 yearsestimatedCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Age at maturity2.1 yearsCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Gestation277 daysCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Litter size1COMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Trophic levelHerbivoreCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Activity cycleDiurnalCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Home range10 km²COMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Volume l619 LaverageDetails ↓Hide ↑
Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.
estimated = a model's estimate for a species nobody has measured; average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.
Not recorded for Aurochs yet: top speed, bite force.
Family tree
- kingdomAnimalia
- ›phylumChordata
- ›classMammalia
- ›orderArtiodactyla
- ›familyBovidae
- ›genusBos
- ›speciesBos taurus
- classMammals · Mammalia
- orderEven-toed hoofed animals · Artiodactyla
- familyBovidae
- subfamilyBovinae
All 15 branches ↓Fewer branches ↑
- kingdomMetazoa
- phylumChordata
- subphylumCraniata
- subphylumVertebrata
- superclassGnathostomata
- superclassSarcopterygii
- superclassTetrapoda
- classMammals · Mammalia
- subclassTheria
- superorderLaurasiatheria
- orderEven-toed hoofed animals · Artiodactyla
- suborderRuminantia
- infraorderPecora
- familyBovidae
- subfamilyBovinae
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