By 1400, aurochs lived only in relatively sparsely populated and inaccessible forests in the territory of modern Poland, Belarus and Lithuania. Here they were taken under the protection of the law and lived as park animals on 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 aurochs on Earth died. However, the disappeared aurochs 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 aurochs, using, in particular, Spanish bulls, which have more than others preserved the features of their wild ancestors (lat. Bos taurus africanus). In the 1920s and 1930s, the Hake Ox, bred with many of the wild characteristics, 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 beloved by Slavic folklore. Despite the fact that this animal has long been extinct, its name is still found in proverbs, songs, epics and rituals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Slovakia. Proverbs about tours were recorded in Podolia, Kiev region and Galicia, that is, in the places where the tour was once distributed. The tour in song and ritual extends far beyond its former scope. In Ukrainian songs, the tour was preserved in wedding songs 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 Solove Budimirovich. In rituals, the tur is mainly a “tour” in mummery at Christmas time. Alexander Veselovsky traces this custom back to the Roman mummering of a calf, but there is also ritual mummerization of a bull in other cults, for example in the Buddhist cult. In connection with the role of the tour in the ritual, the May holidays are called “turitsami” by Slovaks, Poles and Western Ukrainians. The Lviv Nomocanon of the 17th century mentions the pagan game “tura”. The game of aurochs survived in Ruthenian Podlasie until the end of the 19th century and was described by Valentin Moshkov. This game is related to games of a mating nature. The tours in it are 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
Adolf Hitler dreamed of reviving the extinct aurochs, widely represented in Teutonic mythology. The Nazi program to recreate the aurochs consisted of crossbreeding cattle brought from Scotland, Corsica and the French Camargue. Breeding (German) Heckrind
) were engaged in by the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck. After the fall of the Hitler regime, almost the entire population of “Nazi cows” was destroyed.
Currently, the Dutch environmental organization Taurus Foundation in the TaurOs Project is trying, by backcrossing primitive breeds of European cattle, to obtain an animal that in its appearance, size and behavior will correspond to the extinct aurochs. As part of a project carried out jointly with the nature protection organization European Wildlife, these animals will be used to conserve valuable natural grasslands in Central European countries.
In Poland, scientists from the Polish Association for the Reproduction of Tours (Polish. Polska Fundacja Odtworzenia Tura ) to clone this extinct animal, they intend to use DNA preserved in bones from archaeological finds. The project is supported by the Polish Ministry of Environmental Protection.
see also
- Heck Bull ( in French)
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Notes
Excerpt characterizing Tur (bull)
Tender melancholy, oh, come and comfort me,Come, soothe the torment of my dark solitude
And add 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 more than once interrupted his reading from the excitement that took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only indifferent people in the world who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often went to the Karagins, making up her mother’s party, meanwhile made correct 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 the rich Julie.
“Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie,” 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.
“Oh, my friend, how attached I have become to Julie lately,” she said to her son, “I can’t describe to you!” And who can not love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Ah, Boris, Boris! “She fell 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, all alone: she is so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly as he listened to his mother. He meekly laughed at her simple-minded cunning, but listened and sometimes asked her carefully about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. He spent whole days and every single day 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 covered with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression of her face, which always expressed a readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural delight 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 Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately the woman’s self-delusion came to her as a 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's vacation was ending, Anatol Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, unexpectedly 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 sends his son to Moscow in order to marry him to Julie.] I love Julie so much that I would feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? - said Anna Mikhailovna.
The thought of being a fool and wasting this whole month of difficult melancholy service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already allocated and properly used in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of the stupid Anatole, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of proposing. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree look, casually talked about how much fun she had at yesterday's ball, and asked when he was leaving. 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 women's inconstancy: 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 needs variety, that everyone will get tired of the same thing.
“For this, I would advise you...” Boris began, wanting to tell her a caustic word; but at that very moment the offensive thought came to him that he could leave Moscow without achieving his goal and losing his work for nothing (which had never happened to him). He stopped in the middle of his 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 make sure he could continue. All her irritation suddenly disappeared, and her restless, pleading eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. “I can always arrange it so that I rarely see her,” thought Boris. “And the work has begun and must be done!” He blushed, looked up at her and told her: “You know my feelings for you!” There was no need to say any more: 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 has never loved any woman more than her. She knew that she could demand this for the Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests and she received what she demanded.
The bride and groom, no longer remembering the trees that showered them with darkness and melancholy, made plans for the future arrangement 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 travel, but it was impossible to wait for her recovery: Prince Andrei was expected to go to Moscow every day; in addition, it was necessary to purchase a dowry, it was necessary to sell the property near Moscow, and it was necessary to take advantage of the presence of the old prince in Moscow to introduce him to his future daughter-in-law. The Rostov 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 of the Rostovs' carts drove into Marya Dmitrievna's yard in the old Konyushennaya. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone. She has already married off her daughter. Her sons were all in the service.
She still held herself straight, she also spoke directly, loudly and decisively to everyone her opinion, and with her whole being she seemed to reproach other people for all sorts of weaknesses, passions and hobbies, which she did not recognize as possible. From early morning in the kutsaveyka, she did housework, then went: on holidays to mass and from mass to prisons and prisons, where she had business that she did not tell anyone about, and on weekdays, after getting dressed, she received petitioners of different classes at home who came to her every day, and then had lunch; There were always about three or four guests at the hearty and tasty dinner; after dinner I made a round of Boston; At night she forced herself to read newspapers and new books, and she knitted. She rarely made exceptions for trips, and if she did, she went only to the most important people 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...
FIERCE GIANTS
Primitive wild bulls, most often called aurochs, were huge. During the Pleistocene era (which ended about 12,000 years ago), the height of the male reached 2 m, and the weight reached up to a ton. Gradually, the aurochs 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 180 cm, and their weight stopped at 800 kg.
It was from the aurochs that livestock originated, although this fact remained a hypothesis for a long time: it was questioned that the aurochs’ habitat area was too large, but later it was proven that the aurochs lived not only in Europe, but also in the Caucasus, North Africa and in Asia Minor.
Externally, aurochs differed from modern bulls not only in size, but also in the length of their horns, which formed the shape of a lyre and could reach a meter in length. People were afraid of these animals, since aurochs often attacked hunters. Males were especially ferocious, while females attacked only if a person approached the cub. The sharp horns pierced a person right through, and after the victim fell, the auroch trampled it.
The bull also used its horns during mating games, and if it did not die during this period, it could live up to 15 years - this was the life expectancy of ancient bulls.
SHOW YOUR REGISTRATION
Scientists disagree about the aurochs' habitat. Some believe that they lived in forests, others that primitive bulls preferred open spaces. Most likely, the aurochs loved pastures, since their main food was various herbs. And only after being forced into the forests did the bulls begin to eat 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.
The Turs lived in small groups, but there were also those who preferred solitude. In winter, several groups united and formed a fairly large herd. Before calving, the females would go far into the forest and wait until the calf was strong enough to go to the field.
HUNT IS MORE THAN BONDAGE
The Turs that lived in different regions differed greatly from each other. North Africans were similar to Eurasians, but their color was lighter. The Indian subspecies was smaller in size. Judging by DNA tests, even aurochs from 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 to be used as labor, and only some time later they began to be considered as a source of milk.
And then people. loved hunting. And it was because of hunting that the tours disappeared from the face of the earth. First, the North African ones disappeared, then the Mesopotamian ones... Soon the aurochs 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 the modern territory, where they hid in inaccessible forests. At the end of the 16th century, they began to protect the aurochs, but it was too late. By that time they lived only near Warsaw, and their numbers were sharply declining. And by 1620, only one female remained alive, who died seven years later of natural causes. So the tours disappeared from the face of the earth.
Today, scientists are not giving up attempts to revive the population of these amazing animals. They are experimenting with those types of modern bulls that most closely resemble the ancient ones (in particular with Spanish and Italian species), 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 lost 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 working on recreating the tur and forest tarpan. It took them about 14 years to bring out new tours. To create them, they took rather aggressive Spanish bulls and bison. Both of them underwent careful selection, because the new aurochs had to have a large body mass and long horns.
In 1932, a beast was born, which was called the “Heck bull,” but it was far from being a tour. The hake weighed only 600 kg, and the color was not the same. Perhaps the only thing that hake had in common with aurochs was 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 primitive bulls flourished and were used in Nazi propaganda materials during World War II. The Nazis dreamed of populating Belovezhskaya Pushcha with aurochs and hunting them for fun, but their plans could not be put into practice. The hake breeding center was destroyed by air strikes, and the animals that ran out were shot right in the streets, because they were very aggressive.
WORTHY OF CAESAR'S ATTENTION
Information about the ferocious tour is found in many manuscripts. In his Notes on the Gallic War, Julius Caesar did not forget to mention the aurochs, writing that they are smaller in size than elephants and are relatives of bulls.
He noted that the aurochs run fast and it is impossible to feel safe if these bulls are nearby.
Caesar believed that they could not be domesticated and that those who had collections of the horns of killed aurochs were highly respected.
FROM MYTHS AND LEGENDS
If you remember the ancient myths, it will become clear. That it was the auroch that was exalted by many civilizations, the bull was considered the embodiment of one or another god, mentions of 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 simultaneously fighting evil forces - in the end they destroyed 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 bull. In ancient times, Zeus was associated with a bull: just remember the myth about the abduction of the beautiful Europa by Zeus. Among the Slavs, the bull, along with the bear, was associated with the god Veles.
Cows and bulls have lived side by side with humans for many centuries, ever since wild representatives of this species were domesticated. However, none of the modern people think about what wild bulls looked like, where they lived and how they were tamed by humans. Of course, their build, appearance and disposition were seriously different from modern inhabitants of agricultural lands. Let's talk a little about what Tur was like - a bull that later became one of man's most useful friends.
It was the bull named “Tur” that became the ancestor of today’s cows. Unfortunately, today it is not possible to touch a representative of an ancient species or even look at it with your own eyes, since this primitive animal has long since become extinct. The last mention of the Turs living on planet Earth dates back to 1627. It was then that this valuable breed was finally destroyed by man.
Nevertheless, after the Turs there remained a large cow genus, which includes a huge number of breed varieties. There are also breeds that look like doubles of their horned ancestor:
- Indian bulls;
- Ukrainian large bulls;
- African bulls.
Looking at them, you can imagine all the beauty and power of the ancient bull of Tura.
Despite the fact that these animals became extinct many hundreds of years ago, today we have data about them, thanks to the collection of numerous historical information that helps restore the image of this animal.
By the way, the domestication of Tour bulls began even before our era. In those days, there were entire herds of these wild animals, which began to be hunted for meat.
Gradually, people became more developed, and the first farms appeared. However, selection and animal husbandry in general, as a science and direction of human activity, were in their infancy, so the Tur population was decreasing.
In addition, man destroyed nature, cutting down forests en masse, with the aim of:
- obtain building material for the construction of settlements, shipyards, ship construction, etc.;
- get fuel for furnaces;
- free up the area for agriculture, namely the cultivation of crops available to people at that time.
The bulls migrated from place to place when they lost their homes, however, the hunt for them continued, and the living conditions they found themselves in left much to be desired.
A year before the onset of the 17th century, residents of Warsaw recorded a single herd living in the outskirts of the city, numbering only 30 individuals. Initially, such herds could number several hundred bulls. After some time, only 4 animals remained in the same territory.
After 27 years, the death of the last representative of the breed was recorded. Such a sharp decrease in numbers was associated not only with hunting, but also with the fact that the bulls were deprived of their mandatory living conditions:
The animals began to get sick, and the loss of livestock began without human intervention.
Description of the breed
After the end of the Ice Age, bulls of the breed we are interested in became one of the largest ungulate representatives of the animal world. Today, only the European bison can boast of such a large and powerful body. Other descendants of the tour will not be able to compare with him.
Today we know the following information about the Tours.
Table 1. Information about the breed of bulls Tour
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Build | These animals were very large, with developed, obvious muscles. A larger hump could be observed on their shoulder part of the body. |
| Height | The body height of the tur could reach 2 meters. It's amazing how people in ancient times could defeat such a giant. They had to go out to him in a crowd, and not alone. |
| Weight | The weight of one individual tur could reach approximately 800 kilograms. The body of females was slightly smaller in size and weight. |
| Head | The Turs' head was large, ending in large and long horns, pointed at the ends, widely spaced and directed inward. The length of one horn could be 100 centimeters. It was with their help that animals fought against predators. |
| Color | The coat color of the aurochs was brown, almost black, and the back was covered with long stripes of a light gray shade. Female bulls were more red in color. |
There were two main types of Tours:
- Indian;
- European.
By the way, Spanish bulls inherited the characteristic humps of the Turs and their unusually shaped horns, although they are no longer so long.
By the way, the udders of the females of the most ancient bull were not as developed as those of modern cows. In addition, it was practically unnoticeable from the side, since it was completely covered with fur.
Habitat and lifestyle of Tura
Initially, the bull of the Tur breed lived in large herds in the steppes. However, it was too easy for a human to kill him in the open. The animals realized this and tried to move to live in the forest, as well as mixed, forest-steppe zones.
Preference was given to swampy forests, where there was a lot of moisture and, accordingly, nutritious, succulent vegetation. The bulls lived the longest in Poland, where the death of the last representative of this breed was recorded.
Interest in hunting was fueled not only by the fact that not everyone could win the Tour, but also by the fact that the meat of one carcass could feed the inhabitants of an entire village.
As we have already said, bulls lived in large communities - herds, where their own orders existed:
When it became clear that the number of bulls had seriously decreased, many European countries issued a decree on their immunity. In addition, many peoples tried to breed Turs, but, unfortunately, due to their weak genetic inheritance, all attempts were never successful.
The only more or less successful breeding works were shown in Spain and Latin America, which were able to preserve part of the breed’s genotype.
The Heck Bull is one of the closest descendants of the Turs that exist today
They still raise bulls that look like Turov, however, their body parameters are much more modest:
- the maximum weight of these individuals does not exceed 500 kilograms;
- growth reaches only 155 centimeters.
As for the character of Turov, he was mostly calm. But when the animal had to defend itself, it became furious, and then the opponents had to be afraid of them and run away as quickly as possible.
Tour diet
Like any other bulls on the planet, Tur was a herbivore. At the same time, he could consume all the plant products that nature provided:
- grass;
- young tree branches;
- foliage of trees and shrubs.
In the summer they usually made do with grass in the steppes, but in the winter they preferred to live in the forest so that they would have something to eat.
In winter, even existing separately bull groups and individuals tried to stay close to the herd. Due to the destruction of forests, every winter the Turs became more and more hungry, and a significant part of the population of these animals died precisely for this reason.
People noticed this problem, and again, in civilized countries they tried to correct the situation. It is known about the existence of positions that formed a kind of ancient supervision services in the field of environmental management. Thus, their task included the following activities:
- control of the number of bulls and the health of herds;
- monitoring the situation in forests;
- regulation of deforestation.
Some peasant farming settlements received orders to collect hay, which they now had to prepare not only for their own livestock, but also for the Turs. They had to take the harvested hay to the forest and leave it there so that the bulls could consume it and somehow cope with hunger.
How did Turov reproduce?
Traditional mating games among the Turs began at the beginning of autumn, its first months, when the warmth had not yet gone away.
The order of mating games was as follows:
- males determined the most attractive female for themselves;
- figured out the opponent;
- fought with each other for life and death.
Interestingly, the last statement is not at all artistic, but literal, since death is a completely expected result of a mating battle. In this way, the surviving male proved that he was the alpha representative of the herd, and was worthy to continue his lineage.
These ancient cows usually calved in the spring, around May. Tura females, like today's cows, began to hide before calving and retreated into the most impenetrable wilds of the forests. It was there that small calves were born, who for about 3 weeks saw only their mother, as she hid the newborn from predators and enemies, including humans.
It also happened that calving occurred in September if the animals were mated later than usual. The reasons for this delay are unknown, however, the state of health of the Turs and their initial strength allowed mothers to bear fruits even in the hot summer.
Sometimes male Turs, encountering domesticated cattle, could also cover local females. From such matings weak hybrids were born, which, unfortunately, quickly died at a young age.
Let's sum it up
Tur is a bull that is the ancestor of all cows and bulls existing in the world today. Unfortunately, representatives of this species have long been no longer found on the planet. Today, livestock breeders from many countries are working to recreate this breed, or at least a variety close to it.
Video – Tour Bull
Tour(lat. Bos primigenius) - a primitive wild bull, the progenitor of modern cattle, the closest relatives are Watussi and gray Ukrainian cattle. Now considered an extinct animal.
The last individual was not killed in a hunt, but died in 1627 in the forests near Jaktorov - believed to be due to a disease that affected a small, genetically weak and isolated population of the last animals of this genus.
Tour(primitive wild bull), an artiodactyl animal of the genus of true bulls of the subfamily of bulls of the bovid family.
Completely extinct as a result of human economic activity and intensive hunting.
The aurochs is the ancestor of European cattle. Lived from the second half of the Anthropocene in the forest-steppes and steppes of the Eastern Hemisphere.
Turs were very beautiful and powerful animals with a muscular, slender body with a height at the withers of about 170-180 cm and a weight of up to 800 kg. The high-set head of the aurochs was crowned with long sharp horns. The color of adult male turs was black, with a narrow white “strap” along the back, while females and young animals were reddish-brown.
Although the last aurochs lived out their days in the forests, previously these wild bulls stayed mainly in the forest-steppe, and often entered the steppe. They probably migrated to the forests only in winter. Turs ate grass, shoots and leaves of trees and shrubs.
The aurochs' rut occurred in the fall, and the calves appeared in the spring. They lived in small groups or alone, and for the winter they united in larger herds. The aurochs had no natural enemies.
Turs are strong and aggressive animals that easily cope with any predator.
In historical times, the tour was found throughout almost all of Europe, as well as in North Africa, Asia Minor and the Caucasus. In Africa, this magnificent beast was exterminated in the third millennium BC. e., in Mesopotamia - around 600 BC. e.
In Central Europe, tours survived much longer. Their disappearance here coincided with intensive logging in the 9th-11th centuries. In the 12th century, aurochs were still found in the Dnieper basin. At that time they were actively exterminated. Records of the difficult and dangerous hunt for wild bulls were left by Vladimir Monomakh. By 1400, aurochs lived only in the relatively sparsely populated and inaccessible forests of Poland and Lithuania. Here they were taken under the protection of the law and lived as park animals on royal lands. In 1599, in the royal forest 50 km from Warsaw, a small herd of aurochs still lived - 24 individuals. By 1602, only 4 animals remained in this herd, and in 1627 the last aurochs on Earth died.
The disappeared tour left a wonderful memory of itself. It was these bulls that in ancient times became the ancestors of various breeds of cattle.
Currently, there are still enthusiasts who hope to revive the aurochs, using, in particular, Spanish bulls, which more than others have preserved the features of their wild ancestors
In nature, there are two subspecies of the Caucasian tur, which are often classified as different species - Severtsov's tur, or the West Caucasian (Kuban) tur, and the Dagestan - East Caucasian tur.
They differ in the shape of the horns: Severtsov’s tur has them saber-shaped, while the Dagestan tur has massive and thick horns, similar to the horns of a ram. The tur belongs to the bovid family, artiodactyl order.
External signs of the Caucasian tour
The Caucasian Tur is a large animal, with a massive body and neck, strong legs and a developed tail of 13-17 cm. The body length is 120 - 180 cm, the height at the withers reaches 78-112 cm. Males weigh 65-155 kg, they are much larger than females. The fur color is reddish-gray, the tail, chest and lower legs are dark, the lower part of the body is whitish. The coat is dark brown in winter, with a dark “belt” on the back and a light shade on the belly. In summer, the coat becomes grayish-brown. The beard is short, up to 70 mm, dark. The head is decorated with horns 70-100 cm long along the curve. In females, the horns are short and thin, about 20 cm.
Distribution of the Caucasian tour
Caucasian turs are endemic to the Caucasus. They are not found anywhere except the Main Caucasus Range. The Dagestan tur lives in the eastern part of the Main Caucasus Range, the western regions are inhabited by the Kuban tur.
The habitat of the Dagestan tur is located along the upper belt of the Main Caucasus Range east of the Terek to an altitude of up to 4000 meters above sea level. The main habitat areas are in the upper reaches of the Samur, Avar and Andiysky and Koysu, on the Talibsky, Bogossky, Nuktalinsky ridges.
Habitats of Caucasian turs in nature
Turs prefer to feed in places where they are little disturbed. The favorite habitats of the aurochs are the upper tracts of forests at the transition points to alpine meadows.
During the year, ungulates roam within one ridge and do not undertake long-distance movements. After wintering, in April-May, the tours descend from the alpine meadows to the sunny slopes of the forests. The first greenery appears there, and aurochs graze in herds of up to 100 individuals. Ungulates follow the melting snow edge; in June-July, the bulk of animals gather in the alpine belt. In the second half of summer, when it gets hot, tours stick to areas where there are glaciers. With the onset of autumn, animals descend to the upper border of the forest, where fresh greenery is still preserved in small hollows. With the appearance of the first snow, the herds move to wintering areas in the alpine belt.
Peculiarities of behavior of the Caucasian tour
The Caucasian Tur is a hardy animal, adapted to the harsh conditions of the mountains. It can withstand frosts, blizzards, and snowfalls. In the places where aurochs live, other ungulates are rarely found. Turs are very careful animals. They have acute vision, a keen sense of smell and sensitive hearing. Ungulates can smell a person from several hundred meters away.
In addition, tours have developed collective notification. In the herd there are always sentinels who inform their relatives about the approach of strangers with a snorting sound. The entire herd reacts to the signals of the sentinel tour; based on the behavior of the sentinel tour, the animals determine the presence or absence of a threat. Constantly, one or more aurochs raise their heads and survey their surroundings. A sharp whistle serves as an alarm signal. When a person appears, animals climb onto inaccessible rocks.
Caucasian tour meals
Caucasian aurochs are herbivores. They feed on cereal plants, eating sweet grass, bluegrass, and fescue. On occasion, do not refuse hellebores and anemones, which are poisonous to domestic animals. In winter, the main food is dried grass.
Ungulates replenish their meager winter food rations with shoots of rowan, willow, aspen, maple, fir, and pine. To compensate for the lack of mineral salts, tours willingly visit salt licks. For this purpose, they cover distances of 15-20 km. They regularly visit watering holes, especially when the grass dries out.
Mating behavior
Among the Caucasian aurochs, male fights are of a ritual nature. When meeting, the males freeze one against the other, then stand on their hind legs and with a sharp movement fall down, striking with their horns. The sound of the collision can be heard more than a kilometer away. The fight ends without bloodshed. Having clashed their horns again, the males disperse.
The rut of Caucasian aurochs lasts from the second half of November until the end of December. During this period, animals are kept in a mixed herd of up to a hundred heads. The young stay away from adult males and females.
Reproduction
The female carries the cubs for 5.5 months. Offspring appear from late May to mid-June. Before giving birth, females go to the subalpine regions of the mountains. Gives birth to one, rarely two cubs. They immediately get to their feet. Already at the age of one month they feed on grass, but suck milk until late autumn. Sexual maturity in females occurs at 3-4 years of age, males reproduce later.
