and curly forehead hair, but none mentions a certain colour. Although the colour is present in a variety of primitive cattle breeds, it is probably a discolouration that appeared after domestication. Body shape The proportions and body shape of the aurochs were strikingly different from many modern cattle breeds. For example, the legs were considerably longer and more slender, resulting in a shoulder height that nearly equalled the trunk length. The skull, carrying the large horns, was substantially larger and more elongated than in most cattle breeds. As in other wild bovines, the body shape of the aurochs was athletic, and especially in bulls, showed a strongly expressed neck and shoulder musculature. Therefore, the fore hand was larger than the rear, similar to the wisent, but unlike many domesticated cattle. Even in carrying cows, the udder was small and hardly visible from the side; this feature is equal to that of other wild bovines. Size The aurochs was one of the largest herbivores in Holocene Europe. The size of an aurochs appears to have varied by region, with larger specimens in northern Europe than farther south. Aurochs in Denmark and Germany ranged in height at the shoulders between in bulls and in cows, while aurochs bulls in Hungary reached . The African aurochs was similar in size to the European aurochs in the Pleistocene, but declined in size during the transition to the Holocene; it may have also varied in size geographically. The body mass of aurochs appears to have shown some variability. Some individuals reached around , whereas those from the late Middle Pleistocene are estimated to have weighed up to . The aurochs exhibited considerable sexual dimorphism in the size of males and females. Horns The horns were massive, reaching in length and between in diameter. Its horns grew from the skull at a 60° angle to the muzzle facing forwards and were curved in three directions, namely upwards and outwards at the base, then swinging forwards and inwards, then inwards and upwards. The curvature of bull horns was more strongly expressed than horns of cows. The basal circumference of horn cores reached in the largest Chinese specimen and in a French specimen. Some cattle breeds still show horn shapes similar to that of the aurochs, such as the Spanish fighting bull, and occasionally also individuals of derived breeds. Genetics A well-preserved aurochs bone yielded sufficient mitochondrial DNA