Aurochs are back![Not Really]

[Kamal900]

Well, they're not really Aurochs or the wild cattle ancestors of today's domesticated cattle in Europe and elsewhere, but they are a mixture of different cattle breeds in Europe to give us a clue on how the ancient Aurochs would have looked like in ancient times.


These guys seem to be happy, lol. They're in Milovice, Czech republic.

[Óttar]

The TaurOs Project seeks to resurrect the Aurochs by breeding Aurochs DNA with modern cattle DNA. Why don't they just do it already? Everything is so slow and inefficient. Shit, we even have the ability to recreate the wooly mammoth using common elephant DNA.

https://www.taurosproject.com/

[Kamal900]

The TaurOs Project seeks to resurrect the Aurochs by breeding Aurochs DNA with modern cattle DNA. Why don't they just do it already? Everything is so slow and inefficient.

https://www.taurosproject.com/

I guess because they're seem to be more occupied with climate change than about resurrecting extinct animals. They should also try to revive the Indian Aurochs, the ancestors of modern Zebu cattle, as well.

[Bakha]

Great thats exactly what I was dreaming my whole life

[Mingle]

The TaurOs Project seeks to resurrect the Aurochs by breeding Aurochs DNA with modern cattle DNA. Why don't they just do it already? Everything is so slow and inefficient.

https://www.taurosproject.com/

They already created countless "aurochs" and wild horses many years ago. These projects are over a hundred years ago and there isn't only one program working on breeding them back. Many of them have been released in some reserves already. The quagga project finished a while ago, but that project was much simpler.

This page has many pictures of those they're already bred: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauros_Programme

Shit, we even have the ability to recreate the wooly mammoth using common elephant DNA.

We haven't done that yet whereas we've been breeding aurochs models since the 19th century.

[Mingle]

I guess because they're seem to be more occupied with climate change than about resurrecting extinct animals.

Not really. The people working on breeding back extinct animals are mostly going to be focused on that. And breeding back dead animals is more likely to help against climate change than the opposite, so that reasoning doesn't make sense.

They should also try to revive the Indian Aurochs, the ancestors of modern Zebu cattle, as well.

Agree. But they're Europe based so it makes sense for them to be more Europe focused. Some Indian group will have to start that.

[Peterski]

Now let's try to breed back T-Rex from pigeons.

[Zuh]

Well, they're not really Aurochs or the wild cattle ancestors of today's domesticated cattle in Europe and elsewhere, but they are a mixture of different cattle breeds in Europe to give us a clue on how the ancient Aurochs would have looked like in ancient times.


These guys seem to be happy, lol. They're in Milovice, Czech republic.

Of course they seem to be happy ! Because they know pretty well they are not in Spain .

[Óttar]

They already created countless "aurochs" and wild horses many years ago. This project is over a hundred years ago and there isn't only one program working on breeding them back. Many of them have been released in some reserves already. The quagga project finished a while ago, but that project was much simpler.

This page has many pictures of those they're already bred: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauros_Programme

They aren't actually using significant Aurochs DNA though, are they? Sounds like a bunch of attempts to select for Aurochs-like traits based on speculation. When I first heard of this project years ago, I was imagining they had preserved some hair or saliva from the last Aurochs in 1627.

We haven't done that yet whereas we've been breeding aurochs models since the 19th century.

We should bring back the mammoth.

[Mingle]

They aren't actually using significant Aurochs DNA though, are they? Sounds like a bunch of attempts to select for Aurochs-like traits based on speculation. When I first heard of this project years ago, I was imagining they had preserved some hair or saliva from the last Aurochs in 1627.

Their DNA still exists in modern cows, it change lost and differed over time. Modern cattle are around 90% aurochs genetically. Aurochs aren't extinct in the same way mammoths are. Mammoths were hunted to extinction whereas aurochs were more or less transformed into cattle through the process of domestication.

Domestication refers to a process where you selectively breed animals for certain traits and then over the course of a number of generations, they become genetically different enough from their original parent species that they're now considered a different species.

The traits that were selected for aurochs when breeding them to turn them into cows were traits such as docility, size, feed efficiency, and so on. After aurochs with these traits were bred over the course of many generations, then cattle were born. The process of selectively breeding them continues to this day.

The logic is that if they can reverse the process of domestication by selectively breeding for wild traits (i.e. aggression, size, color, horn size, etc.) then they can bring back the aurochs in its original shape and character to live in the wild alongside predators.

Cow = domesticated aurochs
Dog = domesticated wolf (or some extinct sister species to the wolf)
Goat = domesticated wild goat
Horse = domesticated tarpan
Cat = domesticated African wild cat
Pig = domesticated boar
Sheep = domesticated mouflon/urial/argali
Llama = domesticated guanaco
Alpaca = domesticated vicuna

And so on.

For most of these animals that I listed, the wild form and the domesticated form exist. For the cow and horse though, their wild ancestors are extinct and that's why there are these experiments to bring them back.

Many of these animals that were domesticated more recently return to their wild forms after being left out in the wold for a while. Britain's wild boar population consists mainly of pigs that ended up running away.

See this: https://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/o..._revert_t.html

Same applies to cats, they aren't even a 100% domesticated species yet.

There's a project whose goal is to try to turn dogs into dire wolves phenotypically: http://www.direwolfproject.com/

We should bring back the mammoth.

Agree. If it turns out to be successful, they won't be a wild population in our lifetime though, or even the next.