Indian aurochs
Indian aurochs skull
Artist's impression[lower-alpha 1]

Extinct (no records after 3,800 YBP[1])  (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Bovinae
Genus: Bos
Species:
†B. primigenius
Subspecies:
†B. p. namadicus
Trinomial name
†Bos primigenius namadicus
(Falconer, 1859)[2]
Map of the species' distribution
Synonyms

Bos namadicus

The Indian aurochs[lower-alpha 2] (Bos primigenius namadicus; Sindhi: انڊين جهنگلي ڏاند) is an extinct subspecies of aurochs that inhabited West Asia and the Indian subcontinent from the Late Pleistocene to its extinction during the South Asian Stone Age.[1] With no remains younger than 3,800 YBP ever found, the Indian aurochs was the first of the three aurochs subspecies to become extinct, while the North African and Eurasian subspecies survived until the Roman and Modern times, respectively.[1][4][5][2]

The Indian aurochs has been found to be ancestral to both the Sanga (Bos taurus africanus) and the zebu (Bos taurus indicus) subspecies of domestic cattle.[6][7][8][9]

Description

The Indian aurochs is known exclusively from fossil and subfossil records, where it shows only minimal morphologic differences to the Eurasian subspecies (B. p. primigenius).[10] The Indian aurochs was probably smaller than its Eurasian counterpart but had proportionally larger horns.[11] Because the range of the aurochs species was continuous from the Atlantic coasts of North Africa and Europe to Bengal, it is uncertain whether there was a distinction or a continuum between the Eurasian, North African and Indian subspecies.[11]

Rock painting at Bhimbetka dated to 8,000 - 3,000 BC depicting a humpless bovine.[12][13]

The last common ancestor of Indian aurochs and Eurasian aurochs (B. p. primigenius) is estimated to have lived about 150±50 ka BP, based on genetic analyses of living zebus and taurine cattle, the domesticated but heavily interbred descendants of those two aurochs subspecies.[14][15] Zebu and many Sanga cattle breeds are phenotypically distinguished from taurine cattle by the presence of a prominent shoulder hump.[16]

Range

The author Cis Van Vuure considers the aurochs species to have originated about 2 million years ago in India and spread westwards.[11] Most other authors consider an origin in Africa, where the species' oldest ever remains were found, from ancestors in the Pelorovis genus and a subsequent expansion into Eurasia more likely.[17][18][5][19][4]

A grazing ruminant like all members of his species, the Indian aurochs roamed throughout West and South Asia in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene ages. Most remains are from the Kathiawar Peninsula, along the Ganges and Narmada rivers in what is today India. Some bone remains classified as Indian aurochs were also found further south, such as on the Deccan Plateau and along the Krishna River.[11]

The most recent remains from presesnt-day southern India, which clearly belong to the Indian aurochs are from Banahalli in Karnataka, with an age of about 4,200 YBP. Further north, the most recent remains date from 3,800 YBP and were found at Mahagara in what is now Uttar Pradesh.[4]

The Indian aurochs survived into the South Asian Stone Age, when its natural habitat steadily diminished by human pastoralism and agriculture spreading throughout the region around 5,500–4,000 YBP.

Possible predators preying on Indian aurochs are speculated to have been big cats such as lions, leopards and tigers, as well as other predatory mammals such as dholes and even giant hyenas and machairodonts such as Homotherium and Megantereon during prehistoric times.

Domestication

The Indian aurochs was most likely domesticated in the Indus River valley, now the Baluchistan region of Pakistan around 9,000 YBP, with subsequent breeding efforts eventually leading to zebu or indicine cattle.[20] The domestication process seems to have been prompted by the arrival of new crop species from the Near East around 9,000 YBP. Human pastoralism, enabled by domestic cattle, spread throughout the subcontinent around 5,500–4,000 YBP. Secondary domestication events - instances of additional genetic diversity acquired from interbreeding domesticated proto-indicine stock with wild aurochs cows - occurred very frequently in the Ganges basin but less so in southern India.

Domestic zebu are recorded from the Indus region since 6,000 BC and from south India, the middle Ganges region, and present-day Gujarat since 3,500–2,000 BC. Discounting gayal and banteng, domestic cattle seem to have been absent in southern China and southeast Asia until 2,000–1,000 BC, when indicine cattle first appeared there.[4]

Feral zebu rewilding attempts

Feral zebu cattle roaming free at Keoladeo Ghana National Park, India

A feral population of zebu cattle is found in the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh.[21] The zebu were left there as a potential prey for Asiatic lions and will thus fill the ecological role of their wild ancestors.[22][23]

Notes

  1. ↑ aurochs horns and taurine cattle's head edited into this image of a zebu:
  2. ↑ "Aurochs" is both the singular and the plural term used to refer to the animal.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Turvey, Samuel T.; Sathe, Vijay; Crees, Jennifer J.; Jukar, Advait M.; Chakraborty, Prateek; Lister, Adrian M. (January 2021). "Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions in India: How much do we know?". Quaternary Science Reviews. 252: 106740. Bibcode:2021QSRv..25206740T. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106740. ISSN 0277-3791. S2CID 234265221.
  2. 1 2 3 Tikhonov, A. (2008). "Bos primigenius". The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN. 2008: e.T136721A4332142. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T136721A4332142.en.
  3. ↑ Campbell, Douglas Ian; Whittle, Patrick Michael (2017). "Three Case Studies: Aurochs, Mammoths and Passenger Pigeons". Resurrecting Extinct Species. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 29–48. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69578-5_2. ISBN 978-3-319-69578-5.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Chen et al., 2010: "Zebu cattle are an exclusive legacy of the South Asia Neolithic." Molecular biology and evolution, 27(1), 1-6. (in Supplementary Data)
  5. 1 2 Linseele, Veerle (25 October 2004). "Size and Size Change of the African Aurochs During the Pleistocene and Holocene". Journal of African Archaeology. 2 (2): 165–185. doi:10.3213/1612-1651-10026. ISSN 1612-1651.
  6. ↑ Grigson, Caroline (1 December 1991). "An African origin for African cattle? — some archaeological evidence". African Archaeological Review. 9 (1): 119–144. doi:10.1007/BF01117218. ISSN 1572-9842. S2CID 162307756.
  7. ↑ Marshall, Fiona (April 1989). "Rethinking the Role of Bos indicus in Sub-Saharan Africa". Current Anthropology. 30 (2): 235–240. doi:10.1086/203737. ISSN 0011-3204. S2CID 143063029.
  8. ↑ Pitt, Daniel; Sevane, Natalia; Nicolazzi, Ezequiel L.; MacHugh, David E.; Park, Stephen D. E.; Colli, Licia; Martinez, Rodrigo; Bruford, Michael W.; Orozco‐terWengel, Pablo (January 2019). "Domestication of cattle: Two or three events?". Evolutionary Applications. 12 (1): 123–136. doi:10.1111/eva.12674. ISSN 1752-4571. PMC 6304694. PMID 30622640.
  9. ↑ Pérez-Pardal, Lucía; Sánchez-Gracia, Alejandro; Álvarez, Isabel; Traoré, Amadou; Ferraz, J. Bento S.; Fernández, Iván; Costa, Vânia; Chen, Shanyuan; Tapio, Miika; Cantet, Rodolfo J. C.; Patel, Ajita; Meadow, Richard H.; Marshall, Fiona B.; Beja-Pereira, Albano; Goyache, Félix (21 December 2018). "Legacies of domestication, trade and herder mobility shape extant male zebu cattle diversity in South Asia and Africa". Scientific Reports. 8 (1): 18027. Bibcode:2018NatSR...818027P. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-36444-7. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 6303292. PMID 30575786.
  10. ↑ Pumpelly, Raphael. Explorations in Turkestan: Expedition of 1904 : vol.2, p. 361.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Cis van Vuure: Retracing the Aurochs - History, Morphology and Ecology of an extinct wild Ox. 2005, ISBN 954-642-235-5.
  12. ↑ Mathpal, Yashodhar (1984). Prehistoric Painting Of Bhimbetka. Abhinav Publications. ISBN 978-81-7017-193-5.
  13. ↑ Sen, Sailendra Nath (1999). Ancient Indian History and Civilization. New Age International. ISBN 978-81-224-1198-0.
  14. ↑ Verkaar, Nijman, Beeke, Hanekamp & Lenstra: Maternal and Paternal Lineages in Cross-breeding bovine species. Has Wisent a Hybrid Origin?. 2004.
  15. ↑ MacHugh et al., 1997: "Microsatellite DNA Variation and the Evolution, Domestication and Phylogeography of Taurine and Zebu Cattle (Bos taurus and Bos indicus)". Genetics, Vol. 146, 1071–1086. Abstract
  16. ↑ Loftus et al., 1994: "Evidence for two independent domestications of cattle." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 91.7: 2757-2761. Abstract
  17. ↑ Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido; Karoui-Yaakoub, Narjess; Oms, Oriol; Amri, Lamjed; López-García, Juan Manuel; Zerai, Kamel; Blain, Hugues-Alexandre; Mtimet, Moncef-Saïd; Espigares, María-Patrocinio; Ben Haj Ali, Nebiha; Ros-Montoya, Sergio; Boughdiri, Mabrouk; Agustí, Jordi; Khayati-Ammar, Hayet; Maalaoui, Kamel; El Khir, Maahmoudi Om; Sala, Robert; Othmani, Abdelhak; Hawas, Ramla; Gómez-Merino, Gala; Solè, Àlex; Carbonell, Eudald; Palmqvist, Paul (15 April 2014). "The early Middle Pleistocene archeopaleontological site of Wadi Sarrat (Tunisia) and the earliest record of Bos primigenius". Quaternary Science Reviews. 90: 37–46. Bibcode:2014QSRv...90...37M. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.02.016. ISSN 0277-3791.
  18. ↑ Edwards, Ceiridwen J.; Magee, David A.; Park, Stephen D. E.; McGettigan, Paul A.; Lohan, Amanda J.; Murphy, Alison; Finlay, Emma K.; Shapiro, Beth; Chamberlain, Andrew T.; Richards, Martin B.; Bradley, Daniel G.; Loftus, Brendan J.; MacHugh, David E. (17 February 2010). "A Complete Mitochondrial Genome Sequence from a Mesolithic Wild Aurochs (Bos primigenius)". PLOS ONE. 5 (2): e9255. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...5.9255E. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009255. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2822870. PMID 20174668.
  19. ↑ Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido; Antonio Pérez-Claros, Juan; Palombo, Maria Rita; Rook, Lorenzo; Palmqvist, Paul (September 2007). "The Olduvai buffaloPelorovisand the origin ofBos". Quaternary Research. 68 (2): 220–226. Bibcode:2007QuRes..68..220M. doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2007.06.002. ISSN 0033-5894. S2CID 55104027.
  20. ↑ Bradley, D G; MacHugh, D E; Cunningham, P; Loftus, R T (14 May 1996). "Mitochondrial diversity and the origins of African and European cattle". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 93 (10): 5131–5135. Bibcode:1996PNAS...93.5131B. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.10.5131. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 39419. PMID 8643540.
  21. ↑ Ganesh Ghosh: "Evaluating prospects of reintroducing Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) in Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary." TIGERPAPER, Vol. 36: No. 2 April–June 2009
  22. ↑ A.J.T. Johnsingh (2004) "Is Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary ready to play second home to Asiatic lions?" Archived 2007-09-27 at archive.today, published in the Newsletter of Wildlife Institute of India (WII). Archived version at .
  23. ↑ Preparations for the reintroduction of Asiatic lion Panthera leo persica into Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary, Madhya Pradesh, India by A.J.T. Johnsingh, S.P. Goyal, Qamar Qureshi; Cambridge Journals Online; Oryx (2007), 41: 93-96 Cambridge University Press; Copyright 2007 Fauna & Flora International; doi:10.1017/S0030605307001512; Published online by Cambridge University Press 05Mar2007
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