Giant extinct prehistoric cattle to bred back
Cattle depicted in ochre and charcoal in prehistoric cave paintings such as those at Lascaux in France and admired by Julius Caesar for their “elephantine” size and brute strength are now at the centre of a study to bring them back to life.
The immense cattle – called the auroch — depicted in the paintings with sweeping horns once lived in European forests have not been seen for almost 400 years.
Now, a team of scientists in Italy are looking into to the use of selective breeding and genetic expertise obtained from modern-day wild cattle breeding to regenerate the fearsome animal which is rumoured to have been as high as 6.5 feet at the shoulder and weighed some 2,200lb.
Bos primigenius, of its scientific name, aurochs most closely resemble large cattle including the white Maremma breed from Italy and the Highland cattle. These two breeds are being cross-bred with a technique called “back-breeding”.
Researchers claim to now possess a genetic map of the auroch’s genome. Therefore, they precisely know what they have to replicate in order to create the auroch.
Donato Matassino, the team leader and head of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology in Benevento, in Campania, said the researchers have already made their initial round of back-breeding between three breeds native to Italy, Britain and Spain.
The British Isles last saw the auroch in the Iron Age and the animal was declared extinct after a female of breed died in a Polis forest in 1627.