Aurochs was entitled as the official Moldova national animal. Bos Primigenius is the scientific name of Aurochs, which is commonly known as aurochs, or rarely aurochsen, aurochses, also called as urus, ure.
It is natively found in Africa, Asia, eastern and Western Europe, parts of North America, South America and also in Oceania. The Moldova’s national animal Aurochs is the well accepted to the people of Moldova for its multiple value and that is the reason to designate as the official national animal of the country. It is also the national animal of Madagascar and Nepal.
The national animal of Moldova, Aurochs varied their color with males and females. The males (bulls) were covered with dark brown or black shaggy coat with light stripe on the back, while females (cows) were reddish-brown colored. They have large head with big eyes and flexible ears, which can move in all directions. It has massive body; domestic cows have short necks with dewlaps hanging below the chin.
The jaws are designed for the circular grinding motion used to crush coarse vegetation. They have two hollow horns and a long tufted tail. Both males and female Aurochs have large forward curved horns, depending on the variety. Surprisingly the cow has a visual field of nearly 360 degrees that is possible due to their big eyes positioned on the lateral sides of the head.
They cannot differentiate green and red color despite excellent eyesight. Cow has excellent sense of smell and hearing. They can able to hear or identify such type of sounds, which have not detected by human. Bulls were very aggressive and they frequently battled with each other to establish dominance and get opportunity to mate with females during the late summer and early autumn.
Moldova’s national animal the Aurochs has separate names of both male and female. They are identified as; the females are called “cow.” The males are known as bull, ram and the babies name calf. Cattle are frequently raised as livestock for meat, as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products. Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel. It also used as draft animals such as the oxen or bullocks that pull carts, plows and other implements. The Aurochs are targeted by wolves, bears, tigers, hyenas and lions.
In 1920, Heck brothers from the Germany zoo determined to re-create aurochs through discriminating breeding of modern cattle. It was big ox and morphologically similar, but genetically distant from true aurochs.