It is rare that people think when looking at a real cow, where it came from, and who are its progenitors. In fact, it came from non-existent already extinct primitive representatives of wild cattle.
Tour bull is the ancestor of our present. These animals have not existed on earth since 1627. It was then that the last one was destroyed. wild tour bull. Today, this extinct giant has counterparts among African, Ukrainian cattle and Indian animals.
These animals lived for a long time. But this did not stop people from learning about them as much as possible. Research, historical data have greatly helped in this.
Initially, when a person first meets tour by a primitive bull there were a large number of them. Gradually, in connection with the labor activity of man and his intervention in nature, these animals became less and less.
Due to deforestation tour ancient bull had to move to other places. But this did not save their population. In 1599, in the Warsaw region, people recorded no more than 30 individuals of these amazing. Very little time has passed and there are only 4 left.
And in 1627, the death of the last round of the bull was recorded. Until now, people cannot understand how it happened that such huge ones died. Moreover, the last of them died not at the hands of hunters, but from diseases.
Researchers are inclined to the version that tour extinct bull suffered from weak genetic heredity, which was the reason for the complete disappearance of the species.
Description and features of the tour
After the ice age, the tour was considered one of the largest ungulates, bull photo tour are proof of this. To date, only European ones can be equal in size to it.
Thanks to scientific research and historical descriptions, we can accurately understand the size and general features of the extinct aurochs.
It is known that it was a rather large animal, with a muscular structure and a height reaching up to 2 m. An adult tour bull weighed at least 800 kg. The head of the animal was crowned with large and pointed horns.
They were directed inward and spread wide. The horns of an adult male could grow up to 100 cm, which gave the animal a somewhat intimidating appearance. The tours were dark in color, with a brown color turning into black.
There were oblong light stripes on the back. Females could be distinguished by their slightly smaller size and reddish brown coloration. Tours were divided into two types:
- Indian;
- European.
The second type of bull tour was more massive and larger than the first. Everyone claims that our cows are the direct descendants of the extinct aurochs. This is how it really is.
Only they have big differences in physique. All parts of the body of the tour of the bull were much larger and more massive, which is confirmed by the photo of the animal.
They were the owners of a noticeable hump on their shoulders. This was inherited from the extinct tour by the modern Spanish bull. The udder of the females was not as pronounced as in real cows. It was hidden under the fur and completely invisible when viewed from the side. Beauty, power and greatness were hidden in this herbivore.
Tour lifestyle and habitat
Initially, the steppe zones were the habitat of the bull tour. Then, in connection with the hunt for them, the animals had to relocate to forests and forest-steppes. They were safer there. They loved wet and swampy areas.
Archaeologists have found many of these remains at the site of the present Obolon. They were observed for the longest time in Poland. It was there that the last round of the bull was captured.
There were people who wanted to make this animal a pet, and they succeeded. The hunt for them did not stop. Moreover, the bull killed during the hunt was considered the most excellent trophy.
The hunter then acquired the status of a hero. After all, not everyone can kill such a huge and strong animal. And its meat could feed a huge number of people.
Tours preferred to live in herds, in which the female tour dominated. Small teenage bulls lived mostly separately, in their close company. And the old males simply retired at all, and led a reclusive lonely life.
Representatives of the nobility especially liked to hunt these animals. Vladimir Monomakh was one of them. I would like to note that only the most fearless people could indulge in such an occupation. After all, there were not isolated cases when a bull tour without problems took a rider along with a horse on his large and strong horns.
Due to its power and strength, the animal had no enemies at all. Everyone was afraid of him. Massive deforestation has become a big problem for these bulls. In this regard, their number gradually and noticeably decreased. When there were noticeably fewer of them, a decree was issued that it was inviolable. But, as you can see, this could not help them in any way.
After that, there were many attempts by crossing to produce a prototype of these animals, but none of them was crowned with success. Nobody managed to achieve the required dimensions and similar external features.
The peoples of Spain and Latin grow animals that resemble the appearance of a bull tour. But their weight is mostly no more than 500 kg, and their height is about 155 cm. They were calm and at the same time aggressive animals. They were able to cope with any predator.
Tour meals
It was already mentioned above that the tour bull was a herbivore. All vegetation was used - grass, young shoots of trees, their leaves and shrubs. In the warm season, they had enough green spaces in the steppe regions.
In winter, they had to move into the forests in order to soak. At this time, they mostly tried to unite in a large herd. Due to deforestation in the winter season, the tours sometimes had to go hungry. Many of them died for this very reason.
The mass death of tours did not go unnoticed by people. They tried their best to rectify the situation. There were even posts that controlled the situation in the forests and tried to protect this species.
And the local peasants were even given a decree to collect hay not only for their livestock, but also to take it to the forest for bulls in winter. But, apparently, these efforts did not help either.
Reproduction and lifespan of the tour
The rut of the tours mainly fell on the first autumn month. Males in frequent cases waged real and fierce battles among themselves for the female. Often such fights ended in death for one of the opponents.
The female got a strong tour. Calving time was in May. At this time, the females tried to hide away, to the most impassable places. It was there that a newborn calf was born, which a thrifty mother hid from potential enemies, and especially from people for three weeks.
There were cases when, for some unknown reason, animals delayed mating and babies were born in September. Not all of them managed to survive in the harsh winter season.
Also, male aurochs of bulls repeatedly covered livestock. From such mating, hybrid animals appeared, which turned out to be short-lived and died. The most difficult test for them was the harsh winters.
Extinct tours left only the brightest memories of themselves. Thanks to them, there are real breeds of cattle. Many enthusiasts still continue to breed breeds that even approximately resemble the ancient giants. It is a pity that all this has not been successful so far.
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 Ox, bred with many features, appeared in Germany ( in French)
The tour is depicted on the national coat of arms of the Republic of Moldova, on the coat of arms of the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, as well as on the coat of arms of the city of Turka in the Lviv region of Ukraine.
Tour in Slavic folklore and rituals
Tur is one of the animals favored by Slavic folklore. Despite the fact that this animal died out long ago, its name is still found in proverbs, songs, epics and rituals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Slovakia. Proverbs about tours are recorded in Podolia, Kiev region and Galicia, that is, in the places of the former distribution of the tour. The tour in songs and rituals goes far beyond its former distribution. In Ukrainian songs, the tour has been preserved in wedding and carols, usually in connection with the hunt for it. In Russian folk poetry, the tour is found in epics about Dobrynya and Marina, about Vasily Ignatievich and Nightingale Budimirovich. In ceremonies, the tour is mainly dressed as a "tour" at Christmas time. Alexander Veselovsky elevates this custom to the Roman calf dressing, but ritual dressing as a bull is also found in other cults, for example, in Buddhist. In connection with the role of the tour in the rite, the Slovaks, Poles and Western Ukrainians call the May holidays “Turitsy”. The Lviv Nomocanon of the 17th century mentions the pagan game "tura". The game of tours survived in the Ruthenian Podlasie until the end of the 19th century and was described by Valentin Moshkov. This game is adjacent to games that have a marriage character. Tours in it is humanoid. Professor Nikolai Sumtsov considered the tour of Russian rituals to replace the bull of rituals of other peoples.
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 (German. Heckrind
) were handled by the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck. After the fall of the Nazi regime, almost the entire population of "Nazi cows" was destroyed.
Currently, the Dutch environmental organization Taurus Foundation in the TaurOs Project is trying to get an animal by backcrossing primitive breeds of European cattle, which in its appearance, size and behavior will correspond to the extinct auroch. Within the framework of a project implemented jointly with the nature protection organization European Wildlife, these animals will be used to preserve valuable natural grasslands in the countries of 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 the Environment.
see also
- Bull Heck ( in French)
Write a review on the article "Tour (bull)"
Notes
An excerpt characterizing Tur (bull)
Gentle melancholy, oh come comfort meCome, calm the torments of my gloomy solitude
And join the secret sweetness
To these tears that I feel flowing.]
Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her and interrupted the reading more than once from excitement, which took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only people in the world who were indifferent, who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often went to the Karagins, making up her mother's party, meanwhile made accurate inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with rich Julie.
- Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie, [She is still charming and melancholic, this dear Julie.] - she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told her mother.
“Ah, my friend, how I have become attached to Julie lately,” she said to her son, “I cannot describe to you! And who can't love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Oh Boris, Boris! She was silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate) and she is poor and all alone: she is so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly, listening to his mother. He meekly laughed at her ingenuous cunning, but he listened and sometimes asked her attentively about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting an offer from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some kind of secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at the renunciation of the possibility of true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. Whole days and every single day he spent with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always sprinkled with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression on her face, which always showed readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural rapture of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word: despite the fact that for a long time in his imagination he considered himself the owner of the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought came to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately a woman's self-delusion offered her consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn into irritability, and not long before Boris left, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris' vacation was coming to an end, Anatole Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, suddenly leaving her melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin.
“Mon cher,” Anna Mikhailovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le Prince Basile envoie son fils a Moscou pour lui faire epouser Julieie.” [My dear, I know from reliable sources that Prince Vasily is sending his son to Moscow in order to marry him to Julie.] I love Julie so much that I should feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? Anna Mikhailovna said.
The idea of being fooled and wasting for nothing this whole month of hard melancholy service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already planned and used properly in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of stupid Anatole, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of making an offer. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree air, casually talking about how fun she had been at the ball yesterday, and asking when he was coming. Despite the fact that Boris came with the intention of talking about his love and therefore intended to be gentle, he irritably began to talk about female inconstancy: about how women can easily move from sadness to joy and that their mood depends only on who looks after them. Julie was offended and said that it was true that a woman needed variety, that everyone would get tired of the same thing.
“For this I would advise you ...” Boris began, wanting to taunt her; but at that very moment the insulting thought came to him that he might leave Moscow without having achieved his goal and having lost his labors in vain (which had never happened to him). He stopped in the middle of her speech, lowered his eyes so as not to see her unpleasantly irritated and indecisive face, and said: “I didn’t come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary…” He glanced at her to see if he could continue. All her irritation suddenly disappeared, and restless, pleading eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange myself so that I rarely see her," thought Boris. “But the work has begun and must be done!” He blushed, looked up at her, and said to her, “You know how I feel about you!” There was no more need to speak: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-satisfaction; but she forced Boris to tell her everything that is said in such cases, to say that he loves her, and never loved a single woman more than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests she could demand this, and she got what she demanded.
The bride and groom, no longer remembering the trees that sprinkled them with darkness and melancholy, made plans for the future construction of a brilliant house in St. Petersburg, made visits and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.
Count Ilya Andreich arrived in Moscow at the end of January with Natasha and Sonya. The countess was still unwell, and could not go, but it was impossible to wait for her recovery: Prince Andrei was expected to Moscow every day; besides, it was necessary to buy a dowry; The Rostovs' house in Moscow was not heated; in addition, they arrived for a short time, the countess was not with them, and therefore Ilya Andreich decided to stay in Moscow with Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had long offered her hospitality to the count.
Late in the evening, four carts of the Rostovs drove into the courtyard of Marya Dmitrievna in the old Konyushennaya. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone. She has already married her daughter. Her sons were all in the service.
She kept herself as straight as ever, spoke her opinion directly, loudly and decisively to everyone, and with her whole being seemed to reproach other people for all sorts of weaknesses, passions and hobbies, of which she did not recognize the possibility. From early morning in Kutsaveyka, she did housework, then went: on holidays to mass and from mass to jails and prisons, where she had affairs that she did not tell anyone about, and on weekdays, dressed, she received petitioners of different classes at home who came to her every day, and then dined; at a hearty and tasty dinner there were always three or four guests, after dinner she made a party to Boston; at night she forced herself to read newspapers and new books, while she knitted. Rarely did she make exceptions for trips, and if she went out, she went only to the most important persons in the city.
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 went, although this fact remained a hypothesis for a long time: it was questioned that the habitat of the tours was too large, but later it was proved that the tours lived not only in Europe, but also in the Caucasus, North Africa and in 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 also used its horns during mating games, and if he did not die during this period, he could live up to 15 years - this was exactly the life expectancy of the 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
The tours that lived in different regions differed greatly 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 significance, then the aurochs began to be domesticated in order to be used as a 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.
The appearance of the aurochs, completely exterminated and disappeared as a wild animal more than three hundred years ago, and its craniological and skeletal features are well known. There are folklore materials, descriptions of the animal made by travelers, images in old books, in particular, the remarkable so-called "Augsburg image", various historical evidence and numerous images of the tour on utensils and other archaeological objects. The number of remarkable wall paintings of prehistoric man in the caves of Spain and France is very large. The paleontological material is also great.
The bulls were of enormous stature and much larger than modern domestic bulls. Their height at the shoulders was 170-180 cm and weight from 600 to 800 kg. According to some reports, the height at the withers even reached 200 cm. These data refer, however, to an earlier time - in the last centuries of their existence, the tours were smaller, and their height, apparently, did not exceed 150 cm. Cows were much smaller than bulls . The difference between them, judging by some reports, was greater than that of modern domestic animals.
In general appearance, the tour was an animal of a relatively light warehouse, with a not too massive front part of the body and rather high legs. He was much lighter and leaner than our domestic bulls. His withers were not high, his back was straight, only slightly rising towards the withers, his croup was straight. The head is proportional, set rather high, rather narrow at the forehead, with a straight profile, very similar to the head of livestock. The horns are large, very sharp, light with dark ends. They move away from the skull, first to the sides, then up and forward and slightly inward, the very end is up. When the head was tilted, the horns pointed forward. The ears are small, the end of the muzzle is bare. The neck is massive, with a slight dewlap. The tail is not long, the end of it descended only slightly below the hock. Cows in general appearance, in particular, in the development of horns, did not differ much from bulls, however, they had a lighter build. The front part of the body was less massive and the head was lighter.
The hair in the summer fur was apparently short and close fitting, but somewhat longer than that of livestock. Almost the entire tail is covered with short hair, only at the end of its large brush of elongated hair. On the forehead between the horns, the hair was elongated and curly. Apparently, the hair at the withers was also very slightly elongated. The winter fur was longer and rather shaggy, longer than that of livestock.
There were sharp gender differences in the coloration of the aurochs. The bulls were painted in an even black color or black with a brownish tinge. The end of the muzzle (the chin and hair along the border of the bare part) was somewhat lighter, along the back there was a narrow light (almost white) belt very characteristic of the tour. Apparently, the belly and inner parts of the legs were slightly lighter than the body. The cows were reddish-brown (bay) and, apparently, also had a narrow light dorsal belt. Winter coloration* of cows was darker. The calves in the first outfit had a bright bay color - like cows or brighter.
Turam was characterized by a fairly significant individual variability. Since it can be judged from the drawings of prehistoric man and some paleontological materials, it was expressed in a change in the overall size and in the size and shape of the horns. They seem to have always, at least in bulls, directed their ends forward, but the shape of their bend at the base seems to have changed, and they were not always curved exactly as described above and shown in Fig. figure. Apparently, irregularities in the form of horns occurred more often in cows. The color intensity also changed and sometimes (very rarely) the cows acquired the dark color characteristic of bulls.
It is possible that in the last millennium of the free existence of the aurochs, there could have been cases of crossing it with livestock and, in connection with this, increased variability.
In such a widespread animal (from the peninsula of Scandinavia to North Africa and Mesopotamia), which existed in very different natural conditions, geographical variability must undoubtedly have also manifested itself. However, very little is known about this. Apparently, there were differences in both size and color. So, the tours of North Africa were bright red. In our epics, in which the tour is mentioned quite often, they usually talk about the “bay tour”. It is possible that the tours of the Dnieper region had just such a coloration, but more likely it was the same as described above.
The systematic position and connections of precisely that form that has survived to our era, that is, Bos primigenius proper, and the limits of its existence in the depths of time are not yet completely clear. For the Pleistocene, even part of the boundaries of the Pliocene and even the very top of the Pliocene, many forms are described - species and subspecies of the genus Bos. Some authors accept 5-6 species of this genus for the territory of the USSR. On the other hand, it is more correct to consider that there were only two of them - the glacial Bos trochoceros and the post-glacial modern tour descended from it. Bos primigenius. Everything else is just geographical or chronological races or individual variations. This concept seems to be very convincing.
The distribution of the tour was very wide. Fossil remains and other data (images) about the habitation of the aurochs during the glacial and post-glacial times are known for North Africa from Egypt to Mauritania, almost all of Europe to the north up to 60 °, from the Southern Urals and from the Trans-Urals and south of Western Siberia (from Ishim, Altai, Pre-Altai plains), from near Krasnoyarsk, from Transbaikalia, Manchuria and China from 50 ° to 40 ° N. sh. south and east to the Pacific Ocean, and in addition, from Turkmenistan (Annau near Ashgabat), from the Caucasus, from the Crimea, Asia Minor, Palestine, Mesopotamia and some other adjacent places.
Some of this information refers to Bos trochoceros, some, no doubt, to our tour, but to a very distant time. Therefore, it is very difficult to single out in this territory the one on which the aurochs lived precisely in historical time, or at least in the last millennia. Archaeological, folklore and historical materials most likely suggest that in historical times tours were conducted in North Africa (Egypt, North-West Africa, Mauritania) throughout southern, central and western Europe, including England (in Ireland, they apparently , was not), north to southern Sweden, inclusive, in the Balkans, in Asia Minor, in Syria and Mesopotamia and, perhaps, in southern Turkmenistan.
On the territory of the European part of the USSR, tours lived in the Baltic republics, in Lithuania and Belarus, in the Dnieper basin (at least near Chernigov and Kiev) and, probably, in the Don basin, at least in its upper part. In the north, they met eastward to the region of Novgorod and the southern shore of Lake Ladoga (the northernmost habitat of the species). It is possible that the animals lived or visited in the regions of Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Smolensk, Kalinin, Yaroslavl and Novgorod1. In the middle of the first millennium BC, the aurochs, apparently, was widespread across the steppes of Ukraine and even Ciscaucasia - excellent images of the animal are known from the Chertomlytsky and Maikop barrows.
Thus, the range of the tur in our country was an irregularly shaped triangle, which had as its base the western border of the state, in the north starting from Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland. The apex of the triangle captured the Don basin and stretched as a cape into Ciscaucasia. The northeastern border probably skirted Moscow from the south. The spread of this animal, which feeds mainly on grass, to the northeast was probably hindered by heavy snowfall and the length of the snowy season. The tour hardly crossed the 50 cm snow depth line.
Apparently, before historical time, aurochs lived both in Western Siberia and in Kazakhstan, however, the available single indications do not make it possible to get an idea about the range of the animal here and about the connections of these habitats with the European one. Images of a tour dating back several millennia are available in the Minusinsk Basin and, apparently, later, on the rocks of the Chulak Mountains in the middle reaches of the Ili; there is information about the habitation of the tour in the Kamensky district of the Kulunda steppe in the 16th or 17th century and near Kuznetsk in the 18th.
There is very little information about the biology of the tour. In Europe, at least in historical times, he kept to forests, sometimes even continuous, damp and swampy. However, it is undoubted that in some parts of the range and even in most of it, he lived in sparse forests, or where forests alternated with meadows, and in the forest-steppe and even in open steppe spaces with poorly developed forest vegetation (urem forests) or in places maybe even completely without it (Africa). In Europe, in the last centuries of their life, aurochs also preferred open meadow pastures in the summer and went to the forests for the winter, feeding there partially on branch food.
It is highly probable that the continuous forest tracts, in which the last Lithuanian and Polish aurochs really lived, were for them (as well as for the bison) the last refuge, where the animals were pushed back by the persecution of man. In some places (Pyrenees) tours lived in the mountains, up to alpine meadows.
Tours lived in small groups. According to some reports, they joined these herds mainly in winter, and in summer they kept more alone. In nutrition, in addition to grass and shoots of trees and shrubs, acorns also played a certain role in autumn, on which the animals grew very fat. The rut took place in September, the birth of calves in the spring.
Tours had a wild and evil disposition, were not afraid of humans and were very aggressive. In Russian folklore and chronicles, they serve as a symbol of not only power, but also courage (“brave bo be yako and tour”, “buy tur Vsevolodovich”). Hunting them with their strength and mobility (as epics emphasize, they were quite dexterous and could run fast) was very dangerous and was considered a valiant deed. “Two tours me on roses and with a horse,” wrote Vladimir Monomakh, who was a wonderful hunter. The small number of remnants of aur in ancient human settlements, with an abundance of remnants of aurochs, some researchers explain by the fact that aur was too dangerous an enemy and too difficult prey for Paleolithic and even Neolithic people. Adult bulls often fought among themselves and, apparently, with bison. In fact, they had no enemies among predators - wolves were not dangerous for adult animals and only calves and young ones suffered from them.
On the vast territory described, the aurochs were exterminated, apparently also partly driven out by cattle breeding, at different times, partly a very long time ago. So, in Egypt, the wild tour died by the end of the ancient kingdom (until 2400 BC), in Mesopotamia, it apparently existed longer - it lived during the time of the Babylonian kingdom, but was no longer encountered in the later times of Assyria kingdoms (about 600 BC). In Central Europe, tours lived in the Middle Ages and survived in places, for example, along the Rhine, until the 12th century. In this century (at least at the beginning of it) they existed in the wild along the Dnieper, in particular in the Chernigov lands. Here, Prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich (Monomakh) hunted them during his Chernigov reign.
By 1400, aurochs had disappeared in Central and Western Europe, but were still found in the Kaliningrad region, and after that, and in general, they survived the longest in Poland (especially in Mazovia) and partly in Lithuania. The last centuries and until the date of the death of the last round (1627), the animals lived here under the protection of special decrees, and then they were kept as park animals in the royal hunting grounds. They had guards, they put haystacks for them in the winter, etc. The death of aurochs in Central Europe coincided chronologically and is largely associated with the “epoch of clearings” in the 9th-11th centuries. (in the 11th century they were still common in the royal hunting grounds in the Vosges). Their preservation in Poland and Lithuania, obviously, was due to the presence here of vast forest areas that are difficult to access and sparsely populated by humans.
The tour is the ancestor of European cattle. In some of the most primitive rocks, individual signs of it have been preserved quite clearly. These breeds include Scottish and English park cattle, Hungarian steppe cattle, gray Ukrainian and some others, especially the fighting bulls of Spain and southern France, in particular the semi-wild bulls of the Camargue (the mouth of the Rhone).
The preservation of the most typical turya appearance among the fighting bulls is primarily due to the conscious maintenance of the type of animal that was demanded by the traditions of the arena, coming from very distant times. In particular, this applies to the shape of the horns, as well as to the black color. At the same time, fighting bulls are not entirely of the same type and among them there are separate “lines” associated with individual factories (“ganaderia”), cultivating animals specifically for “corrida” (bullfighting). In some of these lines, the features of the tour are more pronounced than in others.
The domestication of the aurochs took place about 4000 years ago (2000 years before our era) in South-Eastern Europe (in Greece). From here, the home form spread to the west and north-west into the Baltic Sea basin and by our time has reached a great variety.
What an animal tour looked like can currently only be found out by looking at pictures and reconstructions of its appearance. Now representatives of this species of artiodactyl mammals are considered extinct. Their closest relative is the Watussi bull, common in the expanses of Africa, and now retains the features inherent in their wild, disappeared relatives. The last wild individuals were exterminated about 300 years ago.
Tours are now considered extinct.
Habitat
Thanks to genetic studies of the available bone remains of animals, it was revealed where the extinct tour lived. The cows that appeared on the territory of Eurasia most likely descended from these massive bulls. Representatives of gray Ukrainian cattle especially clearly show the features of a long-gone animal. but the last wild aurochs was destroyed in 1627. Tours in the 2nd half of the Anthropogene inhabited all the steppe and forest-steppe zones of the Eastern Hemisphere.
Initially, wild bulls were distributed along the entire length of the Nile River. Subsequently, they came to the territory of India, Pakistan and Africa. Much later, the tours settled in the forest-steppe zone of Europe, the Caucasus and Asia Minor. The spread of aurochs and their rapid migration was facilitated by the massive cutting down of trees in the 6th century BC. This has led to a significant limitation of suitable habitats for tours. First, the population of these animals was completely destroyed in Africa, and then in India and Asia.
The wild ancestors of the cow migrated to the banks of the Dnieper. By the 9th c. the wild bull tur met in the forest-tundra zone of Lithuania and Poland. In central Europe, the animal population survived until the 16th century. Here they were under protection for a long time, but even living in the reserved royal forests did not save them. In 1559, 29 representatives of these wild cow ancestors were identified near Warsaw, but after 3 years their number was only 4 individuals.
Russian desman: description and lifestyle
Scientists do not know what exactly influenced the species that it became extinct almost everywhere. Although human activity may indeed have affected numbers, many other wild relatives of the domesticated cow have adapted effectively and now maintain their populations relatively large. It is possible that the extinct wild bull aurochs fell victim to its genome, which made it unadapted to changing habitats and climate shifts. There is a version that new diseases could mow down majestic creatures. This theory is not without foundation, because the last known representative of the breed died precisely because of an unknown disease.
Appearance of animals (video)
Characteristic features of the tour
What a bull looks like, which disappeared from the face of the earth more than 300 years ago, was determined thanks to the remaining bone elements, as well as the drawings of naturalists of those eras when unique creatures still roamed the earth. Tur belonged to the largest animals that lived after the end of the ice age. Scientists believe that its dimensions were commensurate only with the dimensions of the living European bison.
Thanks to the remaining bone evidence of the stay of the aurochs on the ground, it was revealed that their average height at the withers reached approximately 170-180 cm. The body weight of bulls varied from 800 to 1100 kg. The body of the animal was elongated. Its length reached 3 m. The ancient bull, which lived in India, was more modest in size. The muscles of the European animal were very well developed. Horns were a distinctive feature of these animals.
Funny animal echidna: description, lifestyle in nature
They had the following characteristics:
- size up to 90 cm;
- up to 20 cm in diameter;
- widely spaced;
- heads growing from the sides;
- directed forward;
- slightly curved tips
Wild cows of this species were less impressive in size. The head of the animal was compact, but slightly elongated. Some researchers believe that the aurochs were distinguished by poor eyesight, but had a sensitive ear. Females were usually more modest in size than males. Among other things, gender could be easily determined by suit.
Males had a dark brown coat color with characteristic light stripes along the back. The females had reddish-brown fur. Both sexes had a small hump.
These ancestors of the modern cow had a rather tough temper. The bulls were especially dangerous during the rut. Wild bulls lived in small herds, reaching about 30 heads. The basis of the diet was herbs. During the summer, these creatures sought to eat as much nutritious vegetation as possible in order to accumulate enough fat reserves to help them survive the severe cold. In winter, ancient bulls could absorb young branches and dig out withered hay, mosses, lichens from under a layer of snow. The natural enemies of this animal were wolves. At a time when these majestic bulls roamed Europe, large flocks of gray predators were also present in their areas of distribution.
Gallery: tour (30 photos)
Revival attempts
Recently, in some countries of the world, work has been carried out to restore long-extinct animals. Tours are no exception. The work is carried out in 2 directions. Some scientists are trying to get intact DNA. Others are trying to get a wild bull by crossing ancient domesticated cow breeds. In Holland, a special Taurus fund was even created, which is engaged in obtaining bulls that are outwardly indistinguishable from tours.
