The extinct wild cattle species that once roamed Eurasia and died out in 1627 was the aurochs.
The aurochs (Bos primigenius) was the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. It was a massive bovine, with bulls reaching roughly 180 centimeters at the shoulder and carrying large, forward-curving horns. Its range once stretched from western Europe and North Africa across the Middle East to India and East Asia.
Although cattle were domesticated from aurochs populations thousands of years ago, domestic cattle are not simply tame aurochs. Selective breeding changed their size, shape, behavior, and genetics. The last known wild herd survived in Poland’s Jaktorów Forest. Its numbers fell sharply during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the final aurochs cow died there in 1627.
A common mix-up is confusing the aurochs with the European bison. Both were large wild bovines, but they were separate species. The aurochs was the ancestor of cattle, while the European bison belongs to the bison genus Bison. Some recent archaeological evidence has even raised the possibility that small aurochs populations survived elsewhere slightly later than the traditionally accepted date.