The

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

Bovini or wild cattle are medium to massive bovines that are native to

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. These include the enigmatic,

antelope The term antelope refers to numerous extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae that are indigenous to most of Africa, India, the Middle East, Central Asia, and a small area of Eastern Europe. Antelopes do ...

-like

saola The saola (''Pseudoryx nghetinhensis''), also called spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid, is a forest-dwelling bovid native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was described in 1993 following a discovery of ...

, the African and Asiatic buffaloes, and a clade that consists of

bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

and the wild cattle of the genus '' Bos''. Not only are they the largest members of the subfamily

Bovinae Bovines (subfamily Bovinae) comprise a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large-sized ungulates, including cattle, bison, African buffalo, water buffalos, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The members of this group are class ...

, they are the largest species of their family

Bovidae The Bovidae comprise the family (biology), biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes Bos, cattle, bison, Bubalina, buffalo, antelopes (including Caprinae, goat-antelopes), Ovis, sheep and Capra (genus), goats. A member o ...

. The largest species is the gaur (''Bos gaurus''), weighing up to . Bovins and

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

s have had a long and complex relationship. Five of seven species have been successfully domesticated, with one species (

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...

) being the most successful member of their lineage. Domesticated shortly after the last ice age, Op. cit. in there are at least 1.4 billion cattle in the world. Domestic bovines have been selectively bred for

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). Beef can be prepared in various ways; Cut of beef, cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often Ground beef, grou ...

dairy product Dairy products or milk products are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, goat, nanny goat, and Sheep, ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food around the world such as y ...

s and leather, and serve as

working animal A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for transportation (e.g. riding horses and camels), while oth ...

s. However, many species of wild cattle are threatened by extinction due to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

to make room for cattle farming as well as unregulated hunting. Some are already extinct like the

aurochs The aurochs (''Bos primigenius''; or ; pl.: aurochs or aurochsen) is an extinct species of Bovini, bovine, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to in bulls and in cows, it was one of t ...

, two subspecies of European bison and perhaps the kouprey. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is critically endangered.

Etymology

In 1821

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

zoologist

John Edward Gray John Edward Gray (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for a z ...

described the family, subfamily and tribe

, and Bovini respectively. The word "Bovini" is the combination of the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

prefix ''bos'' (written as ''bov-'', which is

Late Latin Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in ...

from ''bovinus'') and the suffix ''-ini'' refers to their ranking as a tribe.

Systematics

Placement within Bovinae

The wild cattle belong to the subfamily

, which also includes spiral-horned antelope of the tribe Tragelaphini and two aberrant species of Asian antelope, four-horned antelope and

nilgai The nilgai (''Boselaphus tragocamelus'') (, literally meaning "blue cow") is the largest antelope of Asia, and is ubiquitous across the northern Indian subcontinent. It is the sole member of the genus (biology), genus ''Boselaphus'', which was ...

, which belong to the tribe Boselaphini. The relationship between the tribes varies in research concerning their phylogeny. Most molecular research supports a Bovini and Tragelaphini subclade of Bovinae. There are also some morphological support for this, most notably both groups have horn cores with a pedicle.

Fossil record

The earliest known wild cattle originated from Asia south of the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

during the

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

. This is not only supported by the fossil record but also the fact that

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

has the highest diversity of wild cattle on planet, as well as the fact the southeast Asian saola is the basal most of the living species. At some point after the divergence of the three subtribes around 13.7 million years ago, bovins migrated into Africa from Asia where they have diversified into many species. During the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58 During the Ice Age ancestors of the

had colonized North America from

over the

Bering Land Bridge Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the ...

in two waves, the first being 135,000 to 195,000 years ago and the second being 21,000 to 45,000 years ago.An Alaska volcano and DNA reveal the timing of bison's arrival in North America
'' Alaska Dispatch News'', Yereth Rosen, March 27, 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2017.Fossil and genomic evidence constrains the timing of bison arrival in North America
''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...

'', Duane Froese ''et al'', December 20, 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2017. Below is the list of fossil species that have been described so far listed in alphabetical order that currently do not fit in any of the existing subtribes: * Tribe Bovini (Gray, 1821) ** Genus †'' Alephis'' (Gromolard, 1980) *** †''Alephis lyrix'' (Gromolard, 1980) *** †''Alephis tigneresi'' (Michaux et al., 1991) ** Genus †'' Eosyncerus'' (Vekua, 1972) *** †''Eosyncerus ivericus'' (Vekua, 1972) ** Genus †'' Jamous'' (Geraads et al., 2008) *** †''Jamous kolleensis'' (Geraads et al., 2008) ** Genus †'' Probison'' (Sahni & Khan, 1968) *** †''Probison dehmi'' (Sahni & Khan, 1968) ** Genus †'' Simatherium'' (Dietrich, 1941) *** †''Simatherium kohllarseni'' (Dietrich, 1941) *** †''Simatherium shungurense'' (Geraads, 1995) ** Genus †'' Udabnocerus'' (Burchak-Abramovich & Gabashvili, 1969) *** †''Udabnocerus georgicus'' (Burchak-Abramovich & Gabashvili, 1969)

Taxonomy

The majority of phylogenetic work based on

ribosomal DNA The ribosomal DNA (rDNA) consists of a group of ribosomal RNA encoding genes and related regulatory elements, and is widespread in similar configuration in all domains of life. The ribosomal DNA encodes the non-coding ribosomal RNA, integral struc ...

, chromosomal analysis, autosomal introns and

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...

has recovered three distinctive subtribes of Bovini: Pseudorygina (represented solely by the

), Bubalina (represented today by the genera '' Syncerus'' and ''

Bubalus ''Bubalus'' is a genus of Asiatic bovines that was proposed by Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827. ''Bubalus'' and '' Syncerus'' form the subtribe Bubalina, the true buffaloes. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and classification ...

''), and Bovina (represented today by the genera ''

Bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

'' and '' Bos''). According to the fossil record and the molecular work, Bubalina and Bovina have diverged from one and another from a common ancestor around 13.7 million years ago in the

. The number of taxa and their evolutionary relationships with each other has been debated, mainly as there is several evidence of ancient hybridization events that occurred among the various species of wild cattle, obstructing any evidence of their relationships. Below is the taxonomy of extant genera that are classified as members of the tribe Bovini (more information regarding the species taxonomy is explained more in-depth in their respective subtribe articles): *Tribe Bovini (Gray, 1821) ** Subtribe Pseudorygina (Hassanin & Douzery, 1999) *** Genus '' Pseudoryx'' (Dung et al., 1993) –

Saola The saola (''Pseudoryx nghetinhensis''), also called spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid, is a forest-dwelling bovid native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was described in 1993 following a discovery of ...

s ** Subtribe Bubalina (Rütimeyer, 1865) *** Genus '' Syncerus'' (Hodgson, 1847) –

African buffalo The African buffalo (''Syncerus caffer)'' is a large sub-Saharan African bovine. The adult African buffalo's horns are its characteristic feature: they have fused bases, forming a continuous bone shield across the top of the head, referred to ...

s *** Genus ''

'' (Hamilton-Smith, 1827) – Anoas and the wild water buffalos ** Subtribe Bovina (Gray, 1821) *** Genus ''

'' (Hamilton-Smith, 1827) – Bison (might be part of ''Bos'' instead) *** Genus '' Bos'' (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, 1758) – Taurine and Asiatic cattle

Natural history

General description

Wild cattle are usually massive bovids that are stout-bodied with thick, short legs. Some species can reach impressive body-sizes such as wild water buffalo, wild yak,

American bison The American bison (''Bison bison''; : ''bison''), commonly known as the American buffalo, or simply buffalo (not to be confused with Bubalina, true buffalo), is a species of bison that is endemic species, endemic (or native) to North America. ...

, and European bison, which can weigh between 700 and 1,200

kilograms The kilogram (also spelled kilogramme) is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand grams. It has the unit symbol kg. The word "kilogram" is formed from the combination of the metric prefix kilo- (m ...

and these species can attain a shoulder height more than 1.9 meters. The gaur can weigh up to 1,500 kilograms and attain a shoulder height up to 2.2 meters. There are some breeds of domestic

that can be even larger than both wild species, one of them being the Chianina, bulls of which can weigh from 1,200 to 1,500 kilograms and reach a similar height to the gaur.Chianina
(in Italian). Atlante delle razze bovine – Razze da carne. Accessed November 2017.Daniele Bigi, Alessio Zanon (2008). ''Atlante delle razze autoctone: Bovini, equini, ovicaprini, suini allevati in Italia'' (in Italian). Milan: Edagricole. . There are, however, several species of buffalo that live on the various islands in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

are dwarf species, such as the

tamaraw The tamaraw or Mindoro dwarf buffalo (''Bubalus mindorensis'') is a small buffalo belonging to the family Bovidae. It is endemic to the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, and is the only endemic Philippine bovine. It is believed, however, ...

and the anoa, that weigh between 200 and 300 kilograms. Furthermore, not all species of bovin look like cattle, such as the saola which looks more like

(a fact that caused some confusion among bovid biologists). What all bovins or wild cattle do have in common is both sexes have the presence of smooth horns, instead of annulated horns seen in most other bovids. In bovinans the horns are round, while in bubalinans they are flattened. Like the spiral-horned antelopes there is extreme

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

in bovins, though it is emphasis on the body size and the size of the horns. Males are significantly larger than the females, which most of their features are exaggerated with massive humps, large necks, and in some species the presence of a dewlap. Males and females exhibit sexual monochromatism (with the exception of the banteng, where males are a dark chestnut while females are just chestnut), though the male coloration hues are darker than the females. Coloration can be uniform or with some white markings, from black to brown.

Distribution and ecology

The wild species of bovins are found in

and

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

, though domesticated species or variants have a global cosmopolitan range with the help of

s. With the exception of the open-plains dwelling

and the montane-dwelling wild yak, all species of wild cattle inhabit wooded or forested areas with some clearings. The reason is that most species require much roughage (often tall grass) in their diet and much water to drink. In addition they are less efficient eaters than smaller herbivores, as they cannot selectively forage on relatively short grass due their stiff, immobile upperlips. They commonly wallow in mud and water in swamps, especially with

water buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), also called domestic water buffalo, Asian water buffalo and Asiatic water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also kept in Italy, the Balkans ...

. Forest-dwelling live in

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

and

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

forests. With their large body-size, wild cattle have few natural predators aside from humans. Still they are often prey to

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large, semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term "crocodile" is sometimes used more loosely to include ...

big cat The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus ''Panthera'', namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard. All cats descend from the ''Felidae'' family, sharing similar musculature, c ...

spotted hyena The spotted hyena (''Crocuta crocuta''), also known as the laughing hyena, is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus ''Crocuta'', native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUC ...

s, dholes, and

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...

. It is often the young and the weak that are commonly selected by these predators.

Behavior and reproduction

Wild cattle are very social animals, which they accumulate into large herds, with some individual sizes that can go into the hundreds. Usually these herds consisted of females and their young, although in some species there are occasionally bachelor males among them. Generally the larger and more experienced males tend to be solitary, though in the breeding season mixed-herds occur. There is a strict hierarchy among males based on size dominance. All species of bovin are polyandrous. During the rutting period males engage in ramming against each other in order to obtain the breeding rights for females as well as territory. The

gestation period In mammals, pregnancy is the period of reproduction during which a female carries one or more live offspring from implantation in the uterus through gestation. It begins when a fertilized zygote implants in the female's uterus, and ends once i ...

occurs once the female has been inseminated from the male successfully. In most species it lasts approximately nine to ten months. They only give birth to a single calf. Once the young are born, they will not wean until they are around six to 10 months depending on the species. Females of most species sexually mature by four years while for males it is seven years.

Genetics and hybridization

The chromosome number varies by species, and sometimes even by subspecies, which warrants further research for taxonomic purposes. The ancestral

Y chromosome The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the ...

was probably a small acrocentric, but evolved into several distinct characteristics. The subtribe Bubalina have the acquisition of X-specific repetitive DNA sequence on their Y chromosomes; ''Bos'' has derivative metacentric Y chromosomes, and share the presence of shared derivative submetacentric X chromosomes with ''Bison''. Below is a listing of the diploid number 2''n'' of selected species as follows: * Saola: 2''n'' = 50 * Forest buffalo: 2''n'' = 54 * Cape buffalo: 2''n'' = 52 * Lowland anoa: 2''n'' = 48 * Water buffalo: 2''n'' = 48 * Gaur: 2''n'' = 58 * Banteng: 2''n'' = 60 * Yak: 2''n'' = 60 * European bison: 2''n'' = 60 * American bison: 2''n'' = 60 * Cattle: 2''n'' = 60 Bovin hybridization is most common in the subtribe Bovina, the most well known of these is the beefalo (a cross between cattle and American bison). Most of these hybrids are deliberate from humans wanting to improve the quality of various cattle breeds (in particular for beef production). All bovinan hybrids produce sterile males and fertile females following Haldane's rule. In addition for the

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

purposes, bovin hybridization was used in the past to save several species such as the American bison in the past. This has caused problems for wild cattle conservation as hybrids pollute the

genetic diversity Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It ranges widely, from the number of species to differences within species, and can be correlated to the span of survival for a species. It is d ...

of genetically-pure animals. Bovin hybridization was also a major factor behind the evolution of Bovini, as some species have evidence of ancient hybridization in their

genome A genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as ...

References

{{Authority control Bovines Taxa named by John Edward Gray Mammal tribes