or auroch Extinct wild ox (Bos primigenius) of Europe, the species from which cattle are probably descended. The aurochs survived in central Poland until 1627. It was black, stood 6 ft (1.8 m) high at the shoulder, and had spreading, forward-curving horns. Some German breeders claim to have re-created this race since 1945, but their animals are smaller and probably lack the aurochs's genetic constitution. The name has sometimes been wrongly applied to the European bison
The European bison (Bison bonasus, or Europæus), once widely distributed, but now nearly extinct, except where protected in the Lithuanian forests, and perhaps in the Caucasus