The

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

Bovini, or wild cattle, are medium to massive

bovine 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 evolutionary relationship betwe ...

s that are native to North America,

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

, and

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

. These include the enigmatic, antelope-like

saola The saola (''Pseudoryx nghetinhensis''), also called spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid, is one of the world's rarest large mammals, a forest-dwelling bovine native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was descr ...

, the African and Asiatic buffalos, and a clade that consists of bison and the wild cattle of the genus ''

Bos ''Bos'' (from Latin '' bōs'': cow, ox, bull) is the genus of wild and domestic cattle. ''Bos'' is often divided into four subgenera: ''Bos'', ''Bibos'', ''Novibos'', and ''Poephagus'', but including these last three divisions within the gen ...

''. 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 evolutionary relationship betwe ...

, they are the largest species of their family

Bovidae The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, t ...

. The largest species is the

gaur The gaur (''Bos gaurus''; ), also known as the Indian bison, is a bovine native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986. The global population was estimated at a maximum of 21,000 m ...

(''Bos gaurus''), weighing up to . Bovins and

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

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, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

) 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 bovins have been selectively bred for

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantit ...

, dairy products 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 instead of being slaughtered to harvest animal products. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for ...

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

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

to make room for cattle farming as well as unregulated hunting. Some are already extinct like the aurochs, two subspecies of

European bison The European bison (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, along ...

and perhaps the

kouprey The kouprey (''Bos sauveli''), also known as forest ox is a forest-dwelling, wild bovine species native to Southeast Asia. A young male was sent to the Paris Zoological Park in 1937 and was described by the French zoologist Achille Urbain who ...

. 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. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

zoologist

John Edward Gray John Edward Gray, FRS (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 ...

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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

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

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) 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 , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

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 The tribe Tragelaphini (sometimes referred to by some authors as "Strepsicerotini"), or the spiral-horned antelopes, are bovines that are endemic to sub-Sahara Africa. These include the bushbuck, kudus, and the elands. The scientific name is i ...

and two aberrant species of Asian antelope,

four-horned antelope The four-horned antelope (''Tetracerus quadricornis''), or ''chousingha'', is a small antelope found in India and Nepal. Its four horns distinguish it from most other bovids, which have two horns (with a few exceptions, such as the Jacob sheep) ...

and

nilgai The nilgai (''Boselaphus tragocamelus'') (, literally meaning "blue cow") is the largest Asian antelope and is ubiquitous across the northern Indian subcontinent. It is the sole member of the genus ''Boselaphus'' and was described by Peter S ...

, which belong to the tribe

Boselaphini Boselaphini is a tribe of bovines. It contains only two extant genera, each with a single extant species. Description The Boselaphini or four-horned antelope tribe are the last survivors of a form very similar to that of the ancestors of the bro ...

. 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 Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

The fossil record

The earliest known wild cattle originated from

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

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 planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

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

south Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

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 in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58 During the Ice Age ancestors of the bison 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 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of ...

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 The ''Anchorage Daily News'' is a daily newspaper published by the Binkley Co., and based in Anchorage, Alaska. It is the most widely read newspaper and news website (adn.com) in the state of Alaska. The newspaper is headquartered in Anchorage, ...

'', 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 Sc ...

'', 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

Majority of phylogenetic work based on

ribosomal DNA Ribosomal DNA (rDNA) is a DNA sequence that codes for ribosomal RNA. These sequences regulate transcription initiation and amplification, and contain both transcribed and non-transcribed spacer segments. In the human genome there are 5 chromo ...

chromosomal A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...

analysis, autosomal introns and mitochondrial DNA has recovered three distinctive subtribes of Bovini: Pseudorygina (represented solely by the

Bubalina Bubalina is a subtribe of wild cattle that includes the various species of true buffalo. Species include the African buffalo, the anoas, and the wild water buffalo (including the domesticated variant water buffalo). Buffaloes can be found ...

(represented today by the genera '' Syncerus'' and '' Bubalus''), and Bovina (represented today by the genera '' Bison'' and ''

''). 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 Late Miocene. 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 The saola (''Pseudoryx nghetinhensis''), also called spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid, is one of the world's rarest large mammals, a forest-dwelling bovine native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was desc ...

'' (Dung et al., 1993) –

Saola The saola (''Pseudoryx nghetinhensis''), also called spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid, is one of the world's rarest large mammals, a forest-dwelling bovine native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was descr ...

s ** Subtribe

(Rütimeyer, 1865) *** Genus '' Syncerus'' (Hodgson, 1847) – African buffalos *** Genus '' Bubalus'' (Hamilton-Smith, 1827) –

Anoa Anoa, also known as dwarf buffalo and ''sapiutan'', are two species of the genus '' Bubalus'' endemic to the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia: the mountain anoa (''Bubalus quarlesi'') and the lowland anoa (''Bubalus depressicornis''). Both li ...

s and the

wild water buffalo The wild water buffalo (''Bubalus arnee''), also called Asian buffalo, Asiatic buffalo and wild buffalo, is a large Bovinae, bovine native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as ''Endangered species, Endangered'' i ...

s ** Subtribe Bovina (Gray, 1821) *** Genus '' Bison'' (Hamilton-Smith, 1827) – Bison (might be part of ''Bos'' instead) *** Genus ''

'' (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

, 1758) – Taurine and Asiatic cattle

Natural history

General description

Wild cattle are usually massive

bovid The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, ...

s that are stout-bodied with thick, short legs. Some species can reach impressive body-sizes such as

, wild yak,

American bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply Bubalina, buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongs ...

, and

, which can weigh between 700 and 1,200

kilograms The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially ...

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

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

are dwarf species, such as the

tamaraw The tamaraw or Mindoro dwarf buffalo (''Bubalus mindorensis'') is a small hoofed mammal 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, howe ...

and the

anoa Anoa, also known as dwarf buffalo and ''sapiutan'', are two species of the genus '' Bubalus'' endemic to the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia: the mountain anoa (''Bubalus quarlesi'') and the lowland anoa (''Bubalus depressicornis''). Both li ...

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

bubalina Bubalina is a subtribe of wild cattle that includes the various species of true buffalo. Species include the African buffalo, the anoas, and the wild water buffalo (including the domesticated variant water buffalo). Buffaloes can be found ...

ns they are flattened. Like the spiral-horned antelopes there is extreme

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

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 North America,

and sub-Saharan Africa, 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 Dietary fiber (in British English fibre) or roughage is the portion of plant-derived food that cannot be completely broken down by human digestive enzymes. Dietary fibers are diverse in chemical composition, and can be grouped generally by the ...

(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 the domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, North America, So ...

. 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 leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

and

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

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

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. Despite enormous differences in size, various cat species are quite similar ...

s, spotted hyenas,

dhole The dhole (''Cuon alpinus''; ) is a canid native to Central, South, East and Southeast Asia. Other English names for the species include Asian wild dog, Asiatic wild dog, Indian wild dog, whistling dog, red dog, red wolf, and mountain wolf. It ...

s, and

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

. 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 Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wive ...

. 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 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 won't 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 (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...

was probably a small

acrocentric The centromere links a pair of sister chromatids together during cell division. This constricted region of chromosome connects the sister chromatids, creating a short arm (p) and a long arm (q) on the chromatids. During mitosis, spindle fibers ...

, 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 Metacentric may refer to: * Metacentric height The metacentric height (GM) is a measurement of the initial static stability of a floating body. It is calculated as the distance between the centre of gravity of a ship and its metacentre. A larger ...

Y chromosomes, and share the presence of shared derivative

submetacentric The centromere links a pair of sister chromatids together during cell division. This constricted region of chromosome connects the sister chromatids, creating a short arm (p) and a long arm (q) on the chromatids. During mitosis, spindle fibers ...

X chromosomes The X chromosome is one of the two sex-determining chromosomes (allosomes) in many organisms, including mammals (the other is the Y chromosome), and is found in both males and females. It is a part of the XY sex-determination system and XO sex-d ...

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 Beefalo constitute a hybrid offspring of domestic cattle (''Bos taurus''), usually a male in managed breeding programs, and the American bison (''Bison bison''), usually a female in managed breeding programs. The breed was created to combine the ...

(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 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 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 In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, 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 g ...

References

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