Extinct ancient animal wild tour - the ancestor of cows and bulls. Tour: animal and its image Who is the closest "relative" of the tour

Tur is a bull, which today can only be found in pictures. This is an extinct primitive species of wild cattle, which is the progenitor of all our modern cows. Let's find out about it together.

According to the latest research by genetic scientists, the tour bull is the closest extinct relative of modern domestic cows. Many of the livestock species are a domesticated form of the Eurasian tur, which was completely eradicated in 1627. Today, the appearance of these animals is reminiscent of African Watussi bulls, gray Ukrainian cattle, and Indian gaur.

Watussi - modern look extinct bull

Thanks to numerous studies, today we can imagine not only what this bull looked like, but also how it lived and what it ate. Turs inhabited mainly forest-steppe zones, but in winter they went into the forest, where grass and shoots were taken out from under the snow. These large herbivores also fed on the leaves of trees and bushes. AT warm time years, the animals lived in small groups or singly. But in winter they united in large herds. Due to their large size and very large horns, the tours did not have enemies in nature, but they were destroyed by human hands.

Origin

Tours have inhabited the steppes and forest-steppes of the Eastern Hemisphere since the second half of the Anthropogene. Scientists have found images of these animals in Egyptian drawings, as well as in Ethiopia and Somalia. It is believed that initially the bulls inhabited the banks of the Nile, then came to Africa and only then to India and Pakistan. Later, tours inhabited the lands of Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and North Africa. The first populations of these animals were destroyed in Africa, then they disappeared in Mesopotamia, and only in Central Europe did they manage to live long enough.

Initially, the number of tours decreased due to intensive deforestation, in the XII century they migrated en masse to the banks of the Dnieper. But by the 15th century, they already lived in small groups in the tundra forests of Poland and Lithuania. here because of small numbers they were taken under protection and lived in a protected area mainly in the royal forests. However, this did not save them either. In 1599, only 29 individuals were recorded near Warsaw. After 4 years, only 4 remained.

Diorama of man battle with tour

Interesting. Until now, scientists cannot say for sure what had such a detrimental effect on the life of tours, however, it is known that the last individual died in 1627 in the Yaktorov forests, not from the hand of a hunter, but from illness. There is a possibility that the animals were crippled by a too weak genetic system that could not withstand the then living conditions.

Appearance

Tur at one time was one of the largest herbivores that lived after ice age. Today, its size can only be compared with European bison which can be seen in the photo. With a few accurate studies by scientists, today we can imagine what an extinct species of bulls looked like. So, the tour was a large, muscular animal with a height at the withers of about 170-180 centimeters. The body weight of adult bulls was about 800 kilograms.

One of the decorations of this herbivore was sharp long horns. Their distinctive feature is their inward orientation and wide scope, as in the photo. In males, the horns reached 100 centimeters in length and had a diameter of up to 20 centimeters. The color of the males was dark brown, almost black with characteristic wild species light stripes along the back.

Spanish bull in appearance resembles a wild ancestor

The females were lighter with a reddish-brown coat color. It is important to note that initially there were two types of tours: Indian and European. Moreover, the latter was much larger than the Indian one. And although the tours are considered the ancestors of domestic cows, they had a slightly different physique, as can be seen in the photo.

For example, they had longer slender legs, larger head, more massive horns and an elongated skull. There was also a significant shoulder hump, similar to that of the modern Spanish bull. Only rare breeds, like a pahuna and a Maremman cow. The females also differed. They did not have such a pronounced udder, but instead, it was covered with wool and did not protrude from the side.

Attempt to revive the bulls

Today, the efforts of geneticists and zoologists are not in vain. Many scientists manage to revive some extinct animal species, including trying to recreate the bull tour. So, for example, it is known that Adolf Hitler thought about it. During his reign, several attempts were even made to crossbreed cattle from France, Scotland and Corsica. However, these species did not survive after the fall of the Nazi regime.

Bulls of Heck - an attempt to revive the tours

Today, scientists are also trying to continue the earlier efforts. So, for example, the Dutch organization Taurus Foundation, by crossing some European breeds, is trying to get cows that resemble appearance tours. However, get the original large size animals is still in development.

Inspired by the successful resurrection of extinct tarpans, Polish scientists are now also trying to recreate wild aurochs. While their project is under development and supported by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Photo gallery

We invite you to see how the bull tour looked in the photo below.

Video "Extinct animals of the Cenozoic era"

In this video you can see some more ancient extinct animal species on our planet. Many of them are the progenitors of modern animals.

Most of us, looking at photographs of cave paintings, do not think about who exactly our ancestors depicted. Tigers, mammoths, bulls... Nothing interesting, somehow everything is unrealistic and the proportions are not respected...

FERIOUS GIANTS

Primitive wild bulls, which are most often called tours, were huge. In the Pleistocene era (which ended about 12,000 years ago), the height of the male reached 2 m, and the weight reached a ton. Gradually, the tours decreased in size, it is assumed that this was facilitated by the disappearance of enemies after the last ice age. As a result, their height stopped at around 180 cm, and their weight at around 800 kg.

It was from the tours that domestic cattle came, although given fact long time remained a hypothesis: it was questioned that the areola of the aurochs was too large, but later it was proved that the aurochs lived not only in Europe, but also in the Caucasus, North Africa and Asia Minor.

Outwardly, the tours differed from modern bulls not only in size, but also in the length of the horns, which formed the shape of a lyre and could reach a meter in length. People were afraid of these animals, because tours often attacked hunters. Males were especially ferocious, while females attacked only if a person approached the cub. Sharp horns pierced a person through and through, and after the victim fell, the tour trampled it.

The bull used his horns and during mating games, and if he did not die during this period, then he could live up to 15 years - this was exactly the life expectancy of ancient bulls.

SHOW YOUR REGISTRATION

Scientists disagree about the habitat of aurochs. Some believe that they lived in the forests, others - that the primitive bulls preferred open spaces. Most likely, the tours loved pastures, since various herbs were their main food. And only after the forced departure to the forests, the bulls began to eat the leaves of trees and shrubs, as well as acorns.

The last individuals of aurochs lived in swampy forests, since in open space they were even easier prey for hunters.

Tours lived in small groups, but there were those who preferred solitude. In winter, several groups united and formed a fairly large herd. Before calving, the females went far into the forest and waited until the calf was strong enough to go to the field.

HUNTING

Tours that lived in different regions, were very different from each other. The North African looked like the Eurasian, but their color was lighter. The Indian subspecies was smaller in size. Judging by the DNA analysis, even the tours of different parts of Europe had differences. However, this did not stop people from domesticating these animals 8,000 years ago. At first, this process had a purely ritual meaning, then the tours began to be domesticated to be used as labor force, and only some time later they began to be considered as a source of milk.

And then people. love hunting. And it was because of hunting that tours disappeared from the face of the earth. First, there were no North African, then Mesopotamian ones ... Soon, the tours remained only in Central Europe, but due to deforestation in the Middle Ages and active hunting in the 15th century, wild bulls remained only in modern territory, where they hid in hard-to-reach forests. At the end of the 16th century, the tours began to be guarded, but it was too late. By that time, they lived only near Warsaw, and their numbers were sharply reduced. And by 1620, only one female remained alive, who died seven years later of natural causes. So tours disappeared from the face of the earth.

Today, scientists do not leave attempts to revive the population of these amazing animals. They experiment with those types of modern bulls that are most reminiscent of the ancient ones (in particular, with the Spanish and Italian types), but, alas, the attempts do not lead to the desired result.

HITLER'S FAILED PLAN

By the way, the Nazis faced a similar problem at one time. In the 1930s, there was a project to restore the prehistoric landscape and its flora and fauna. Goering became the curator of the project, and the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck worked on the revival of the past species. Lutz was the director of the Berlin Zoo, and Heinz was the director of the Munich Zoo. Long before Hitler came to power, the brothers began to work on recreating the tour and the forest tarpan. It took them about 14 years to bring out new tours. To create them, they took quite aggressive Spanish bulls and bison. Both of them were carefully selected, because the new tour had to have a large body weight and long horns.

In 1932, a beast was born, which was called the "Heck bull", but he was far from the tour. Hake weighed only 600 kg, and the color was not the same. Perhaps the only thing that united hakes with tours was their aggressiveness, which was directed at absolutely everything: people, animals, trees.

For many years, the Heck bull could only be seen in the Munich and Berlin zoos. The breed's breeding program was so popular that the bred primeval bulls flourished and were used in Nazi propaganda during World War II. The Nazis dreamed of populating Belovezhskaya Pushcha with tours and hunting them for fun, but the plans could not be implemented, the Hake Breeding Center was destroyed by air strikes, and the animals that ran out were shot right on the streets, because they were very aggressive.

Worthy of Caesar's Attention

Information about the ferocious tour is found in many manuscripts. In the Notes on the Gallic War, Julius Caesar did not forget to mention the tours, writing that they are smaller in size than elephants and are relatives of bulls.

He noted that the tours run fast and it is impossible to feel safe if these bulls are nearby.

Caesar believed that they could not be tamed and that those who had collections of horns from killed aurochs were highly respected.

FROM MYTHS AND LEGENDS

If you remember the ancient myths, it becomes clear. What exactly tours were exalted by many civilizations, the bull was considered the incarnation of one or another god, references to it are found not only in the myths of the Mediterranean, but also in, including in the ancient Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana.

The cult of the bull was very developed in Crete and in. The Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians, says that the supreme deity created a bull and a man who created the world while fighting evil forces - in the end, they killed the bull. In Crete, acrobats performed tricks in the same arena with bulls, which was associated with the cult of fertility. Moreover, the Cretan monster Minotaur was half a bull. In Ancient times, Zeus was associated with a bull: suffice it to recall the myth of the abduction of the beauty of Europe by Zeus. Among the Slavs, the bull, along with the bear, was associated with the god Veles.

Scientists believe that most modern representatives of a large cattle descended from the animal tour, which disappeared from the face of the Earth in the 17th century. Traditional songs about him, epics, riddles and sayings, ritual masks have been preserved in the folklore of the Western and Eastern Slavs - the ethnographic material associated with him is huge. It is captured in the petroglyphs of ancient people, depicted on the coat of arms of modern Moldavia, Kaunas, Turks. There is a monument to the animal in Estonia, and a stone in honor of the last dead auroch was erected in Poland (now the Lviv region). For centuries, people have been hunting these animals for meat and skins, testing their dexterity and prowess. The one who struck the bull could boldly call himself a hero. And although the last herd of 24 individuals was taken under legal protection and was located on the lands of the Polish king, the number was constantly decreasing. After 28 years, in 1627, there were no tours. Scientists believe that one of the reasons for its extinction is a weak genetic inheritance.

Scientists believe that most of the modern representatives of cattle descended from the animal aurochs.

12 thousand years ago, the height of wild males was 2 m, and the weight was 1 ton. Over time, they became smaller. More than 6,000-year-old aurochs were discovered in a cave in Derbshire, after which scientists from 6 institutes and universities in Great Britain and Ireland analyzed the genetic material. As a result, the complete sequence of the animal's methochondrial DNA was obtained for the first time.

Beautiful powerful and majestic wild bulls had strong horns up to 1 m long, curving in the form of a lyre and pointing forward. A ferocious animal could pierce a person through them, knock them down and trample them with their hooves. The females were reddish-brown, and the males were almost black in color with light stripes along the ridge, characteristic of wild animals. The shoulder hump stood out, the front part of the body is more developed than the back. The cow's wild ancestor had more long legs, a narrow, slightly elongated muzzle with a depressed forehead, the udder of the females was completely covered with hair and less noticeable.

Beautiful powerful and majestic wild bulls had strong horns up to 1 m long, curving in the shape of a lyre and pointing forward

The wild bull tour lived in Europe, the Caucasus, in North Africa and Asia Minor for many millennia. Animals lived in herds, in which the female dominated, or alone. They ate, like all herbivores, foliage and grass, extracting shoots from under the snow in winter. Scientists suggest that the southern individuals were smaller and not as obstinate as compared to the northern ones. People began to domesticate them about 9 thousand years ago. The tamed animals survived. At first they were used only for meat and as draft power. They moved around the Earth with people, spreading beyond their natural ranges. As a result of the mutation, the physique became lighter and gradually they began to differ from the wild ancient bull.

In the 1920s and 30s, German scientists tried to recreate the extinct animal by backcrossing cattle. The result was a heka bull. It differs from the tour in size and color. Nowadays, similar experiments are carried out by scientists from Holland and Poland.

Gallery: animal tour and its descendants (25 photos)

All breeds of cows (video)

Descendants of the tour

There are several breeds of domestic bulls that resemble the tour. Closest to him is the gray Ukrainian breed, the weight of bulls which reaches 800-850 kg (maximum -1100 kg), and cows - 450-500 kg. Distributed from the Caspian and the Volga region to Spain and Portugal.

What does a bull of this breed look like? It is distinguished by well-developed muscles and high withers. Color gray or light grey. In bulls, the hair on the chest and legs is dark, the tips of the horns are black. Until now, the color has inherent properties that distinguished the wild ancestors of the cow: the coat changes color depending on the season. 100 years ago they were used as draft power. At good care a gray Ukrainian cow can give up to 20 liters of milk per day with a fat content of 5-8%. This breed has good immunity: in the middle of the last century, it was not affected by the plague and tuberculosis epidemics that brought down livestock.

The tur animal is the wild ancestor of the domesticated cow. The year of death of the species is precisely known - 1627. In that distant XII century, they tried to save the last population of aurochs in the forests of Eastern Europe. However, it turned out to be too small to maintain the genotype of the species. So the last tours on Earth just faded away for genetic reasons. Most likely, they were killed by inbreeding, that is, closely related crossing, which accompanies all isolated small communities.

The tur animal is the wild ancestor of the domesticated cow

How the extinct wild bull looked like is known from rock paintings, descriptions and sketches of the period of book publishing, as well as on the remaining representatives of domesticated cows, which have retained the maximum similarity with their wild ancestor.

The closest relative of the tur is the Watussi bull. It is characterized by very long horns pierced by a system of blood vessels. The horns serve not only for defense and fights between males, but also for cooling the whole body. These cows are particularly survivable in severe conditions of heat, drought, scarcity of feed and abundance of predators.

For many tribes equatorial Africa watussi are almost the only source of food. Their natural properties were also evaluated by agricultural producers of the European type of economic organization. In the 1960s, Walter Schultz brought two bulls and one cow to the American continent. So African cows began to explore the expanses of America.

In the 20s of the same century in Germany, an attempt was made to reproduce cows that, in their qualities, were as close as possible to the wild ancestor. As a result, the hake bull was born. Germany of these times was already Nazi, so biological experiments on the reproduction of ancient bulls were highly politicized. Money was allocated to obtain a new breed of animals, in which the power of the body would be combined with a wild disposition.

It was decided to cross bison and bulls, which are used for bullfighting. The result should have been huge cows that have aggressiveness.

The breed of cows got its name from the names of two brothers who were engaged in these works. Partially, the brothers achieved their goal - the bulls turned out to be very aggressive. They rushed at people, animals, trees, fences. And here resemblance the tour failed. This breed was more like an enlarged version of domestic cows with a wild disposition.

Further work was stopped by the arrival of the war in Germany. Almost the entire breeding stock of hake bulls perished.

However, scientists did not rest on this. They are trying to restore the semblance of the tour in Holland. In our time of molecular biology and genetics, this is possible. However, in any case, the restored tour will be a phenotypic similarity to the ancestor. After all, nothing is known about the genome of this tour.

Gallery: animal tour (25 photos)

Tours of the Caucasus (video)

The main characteristics of the animal

The tour is an artiodactyl animal from the bovid family, a subfamily of bulls, a genus of real bulls.

Its range covered almost all of Europe, with the exception of Scandinavia. The Asian part of the range included the entire Middle East, Central Asia, southern Siberia, Far East. These bulls met in India and North Africa.

What does a bull look like that once inhabited most Eurasia? If we summarize all the information about this animal, we get the following characteristic of the species.

1. The tour was a huge muscular beast. Its size was somewhat inferior to the parameters of a bison or bison, but still the ancestors of cows had the size and strength that could withstand such predators as a lion or a cheetah that once inhabited Central Asia and southern part Of Eastern Europe. The height of the tour at the withers was about 170-180 cm.
2. The weight primeval bull ranged from 800 kg to a ton.
3. The head was set high. This landing is dictated by the need to wear long sharp horns.
4. The coloration of adult males was black, and a narrow white stripe. The females were smaller and lighter. Their coloration was reddish-brown.

The biggest wild bull in the world (video)

Biotope of ancestors of cows

The vast range of a large hoofed animal suggests that this ancestor of the cow could live in the steppes, forests and even in semi-deserts. However, the contours of the range were recreated based on paleontological finds, which does not always mean that the animal really was in its native biotope.

Such large animals usually live where there is a lot of grass. To feed in the taiga or in the thick mixed forest such large animals living in herds would hardly be able to.

Tours are animals of the steppes and forest-steppes. Their finds in arid zones indicate not so much that they could feed themselves in semi-deserts, but that at that time other plant communities existed in this place.

The existence of aurochs and bison in the forest zone was possible only under the condition of a high mosaicity of the forest, that is, a combination of thickets with light forests, clearings and edges. Under such conditions, huge herbivores could feed not only on grass, but also on branches of woody plants.

In the Middle East and North Africa, the aurochs were exterminated a very long time ago - in the third millennium BC. In Mesopotamia, there were no wild cows by 600 BC. e. This extermination was both direct and indirect. These animals were actively hunted, which, of course, reduced the number of populations. In parallel with this, the expansion of agriculture took place, which contributed to the expulsion of ungulates from their habitats.

It is not surprising that the last aurochs and bison survived in the dense forests of Eastern Europe. The remaining massifs of these forests are concentrated on the territory of two countries - Belarus and Poland. They are called Belovezhskaya Pushcha. For some reason, these forests, located almost in the center of Europe, were not cut down, burned and plowed up. Tours and bison were saved in these forests not because there were especially good conditions. It was just that in these wilds it was more difficult for a person to hunt them.

Tours were less fortunate than bison. Indeed, by the time of the death of their last population, these animals were no longer in nature. The efforts of the local princes were somewhat belated and, apparently, were ineffective.

A similar situation developed by the middle of the 20th century with bison. During the war they were practically exterminated. The remaining individuals have already been rescued in captivity, but using the achievements of genetics. Having crossed several individuals with bison, it was possible to avoid the consequences of inbreeding.

In the Polish city of Yaktorov there is a monument to the last tour. This is a reminder to people that it is easy to exterminate a species, but difficult and sometimes impossible to preserve or restore.

Eastern hemisphere. Now considered extinct as a result of economic activity human and intensive hunting. The last individual was not killed while hunting, but died in 1627 in the forests not far from Yaktorova(in Poland, 50 km from Warsaw) - it is believed that due to a disease that affected a small, genetically weak and isolated population the last animals of this species.

† Tour
scientific classification
International scientific name
Bos primigenius (Bojanus,)
area
Tour settlement map
conservation status
extinct species
Systematics on Wikispecies Images at Wikimedia Commons ITIS NCBI EOL

Description

It was a powerful animal with a muscular, slender body, about 170-180 cm high at the withers and weighing up to 800 kg. The high set head was crowned with long sharp horns. The coloration of adult males was black, with a narrow white “belt” along the back, while females and young animals were reddish-brown.

Although the last tours lived out their days in the forests, earlier these bulls kept mainly in the forest-steppe, and often entered the steppe. In the forests, they probably migrated only in winter. They fed on grass, shoots and leaves of trees and shrubs. Their rut was in the fall, and the calves appeared in the spring. They lived in small groups or alone, and for the winter they united in larger herds. natural enemies aurochs had little: these strong and aggressive animals easily coped with any predator.

Spreading

In historical times, the tour was found almost throughout Europe, as well as in North Africa, Asia Minor, India and the Caucasus. In Africa, this beast was exterminated in the third millennium BC. e., in Mesopotamia - by about 600 BC. e. In Central Europe, tours survived much longer. Their disappearance here coincided with intensive deforestation in the 9th-11th centuries. In the XII century, tours were still found in the Dnieper basin. At that time they were actively exterminated. Records of uneasy and dangerous hunting on the wild bulls left by Vladimir Monomakh.

By 1400, aurochs lived only in relatively sparsely populated and hard-to-reach forests on the territory of modern Poland, Belarus and Lithuania. Here they were taken under the protection of the law and lived like park animals in the royal lands. In 1599, a small herd of aurochs, 24 individuals, still lived in the royal forest 50 km from Warsaw. By 1602, only 4 animals remained in this herd, and in 1627 the last tour on Earth died. However, the disappeared tour left a good memory of itself: it was these bulls that in ancient times became the ancestors of various breeds of cattle. Currently, there are enthusiasts who hope to revive the tours, using, in particular, Spanish bulls, which more than others have retained the features of their wild ancestors (lat. Bos taurus africanus). In the 1920s and 1930s, the Heck bull, bred with many features of the tour, appeared in Germany. Modern fighting bulls that participate in bullfighting are considered the closest surviving bulls in phenotype to the aurochs; in Western Europe attempts are underway to revive the tour.

Subspecies

• †Bos primigenius primigenius(Bojanus, 1827) - Eurasian tur.
• †Bos primigenius namadicus(Falconer, 1859) - Indian tour.
• †Bos primigenius africanus(Thomas, 1881) - North African tour.

The tour is depicted in the petroglyphs of ancient people, depicted on the national emblem of the Republic of Moldova, on the emblem of the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, as well as on the emblem of the city of Turka in the Lviv region of Ukraine.

Efforts to bring the tour back

To revive the extinct aurochs, widely represented in Teutonic mythology, was the dream of Adolf Hitler. The Nazi program to recreate the tour consisted of crossbreeding cattle brought from Scotland, Corsica and the French Camargue. Breeding was carried out by the brothers Heinz Heck (German. Heinz Heck) and Lutz Heck (German. Lutz Heck). After the fall of the Nazi regime, almost the entire population of "Nazi cows" - Heck bulls - was destroyed.

Currently Dutch environmental organization Taurus Foundation in the project TaurOs Project is trying, by backcrossing primitive breeds of European cattle, to obtain an animal that, in its appearance, size and behavior, will correspond to the extinct aurochs. As part of a project implemented jointly with the European Wildlife organization, these animals will be used to conserve valuable natural grasslands in the countries Central Europe.

In Poland, scientists from the Polish Association for the Reproduction of the Tour (Polish. Polska Fundacja Odtworzenia Tura) to clone this extinct animal, they intend to use the DNA preserved in the bones from archaeological finds. The project is supported by the Polish Ministry of Defense environment.

Notes

1. , with. 516-517.
2. Domestication / Jordansky N. N. // Atmospheric dynamics - Railway junction. - M. : Bolshaya Russian encyclopedia, 2007. - S. 235–236. - (Great Russian encyclopedia: [in 35 volumes] / ch. ed. Yu. S. Osipov; 2004-2017, v. 9). - ISBN 978-5-85270-339-2.
3. Bogoedova T. N. Slavic hydronymic continuants of Proto-Slavic *Tur-// Odessa Linguistic Visnik. 2013. VIP. one.
4. Chikalev A. I., Yuldashbaev A. I.[ Breeding with the basics of private zootechnics: a textbook for universities in the field of training 111801 "Veterinary" (specialist) - M. GEOTAR-Media, 2012 - ISBN 978-5-9704-2299-1 - P. 12