Aurochs
The wild ox of Eurasia and North Africa, ancestor of all domestic cattle, which died out in 1627.
Also: Bos primigenius, urus, wild ox
The aurochs was a large wild ox that ranged across Europe, Asia and North Africa after the last ice age. Bulls stood up to about 1.8 metres at the shoulder, were black with a pale stripe along the back, and carried long horns curving forwards; cows were smaller and reddish brown. Every domestic cow descends from aurochs: taurine cattle from those tamed in the Near East, zebu from a separate group in South Asia. Hunting and the spread of farmland pushed the wild herds back, and the last known aurochs, a cow, died in the Jaktorów forest in Poland in 1627. Cave paintings at Lascaux, Roman accounts and medieval drinking horns are among the records it left behind.