It may still seem like science fiction to bring an extinct species back to life . But de- extinction is a current reality with experiments that automatically remind us of the “Jurassic Park” saga. These scientific advances have, of course, a long way to reach the knowledge and possibilities that we treasure today in laboratories. And among the de- extinction attempts that have occurred in history, there is one that has as protagonists the largest bull that has ever existed and the Nazis.
a nazi experiment
In the 1920s, the brothers Heinz Heck and Lutz Heck set out to extinct the aurochs , a giant bull that lived in Europe. These zoologists defended the ideas promoted by Nazism, a movement that was beginning to take shape.
At the time, genetic engineering was yet to be developed, so to bring an aurochs back to life, the Heck brothers took the route of artificial selection . In other words, they intended to bring together the species of cattle with the characteristics closest to the aurochs and cross them with each other until they reached the original specimen. This theory of involution is not as crazy as it might seem, today it is among the scientific options to recover disappeared species. With this process they wanted to get to a Tyrannosaurus rex from a chicken (they achieved a chicken with teeth).
How was an aurochs?
A bull slightly smaller than an elephant. This is how Julius Caesar described it in his work “The Gallic Wars”. The species Bos primigenius primigenius , known as the aurochs, lived in Europe until the 17th century. They used to have dark-colored fur and horns of almost 80 centimeters. They weighed 1.5 tons and their cross reached a height of 1.80 meters.
We do not know if this species, living in the wild, would have the agility and ferocity of today’s fighting bulls, or would behave in a more docile manner, like our domesticated oxen. The difference is not trivial, since the current oxen are around the same weight as the aurochs (some even reach 2 tons), while the fighting bulls are around 500 kilos. If the aurochs had the size of the first and the bad temper of the second, it must have been a quadruped to have a lot of respect.
However, the domestication of taurine cattle began in the Near East about 10,000 years ago. The domesticated Eurasian cattle we have today are thought to have the wild aurochs in common.
Why extinguish it?
Two reasons have been argued: because they were good allies to eliminate the undergrowth of the mountains , due to the kilos of food they ate; and, of course, to recover what they considered a symbol of Aryan power .
The Heck brothers also attempted to recover an extinct horse species. This animal breeding project aimed to recreate the primordial wildlife of Germany.
“It functioned as part of nature conservation discourses and practices that emphasized the ideal Germanic character of the European landscape and required ethnic cleansing as a form of ecological restoration. […] the reproduction of primordial wildlife was part of a legitimation of the violent expansion in the east”.
Nazi stuff, wow.
Did they make it?
No. In fact, current DNA analysis has confirmed that the Heck brothers moved further away from the aurochs species with their crossbreeding. In the end they were selecting for physical characteristics, but genetically, the cow they started their experiments with was closer to the aurochs than the specimens born from their tests.
With years of selective mating, they managed to create a specimen weighing 900 kilos and 1.40 meters tall. What these Heck cattle did have was a ferocious bravery.
Currently there are projects that try to repopulate ecosystems with already extinct animals such as the aurochs. They are often involved in scientific and bioethical debates, as is the case with the European bison. We are far from the scientific community agreeing on the benefits or consequences of bringing extinct animals to life in ecosystems that are no longer the same as their natural habitats. Nothing new that Dr. Ian Malcolm did not already warn in the movie “Jurassic Park”. Let’s hope that if life ends up making its way, it will be along a well-controlled path.
References:
Crespo, I. 2020. The error of the Nazi giant cows. The reason is
Driessen, C. et al. 2016. Back Breeding the Aurochs: The Heck Brothers, National Socialism, and Imagined Geographies for Non-Human Lebensraum. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226274560.003.0007.
Upadhyay, MR et al. 2017. Genetic origin, admixture and population history of aurochs (Bos primigenius) and primitive European cattle. Heritage 118, 169-176. DOI: 10.1038/hdy.2016.79.
