Remains of the wild ox or aurochs are abundant in the superficial deposits of Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa; those from the brick-earths of the Thames valley indicating animals of immense proportions.
Not the least important feature of the work of Herberstein is the application of the name aurochs to the wild ox, as distinct from the bison.
In the shape and curvature of the horns, which at first incline outwards and forwards, and then bend somewhat upwards and inwards, this breed of cattle resembles the aurochs and the (by comparison) dwarfed park-breeds.
From other evidence it appears that the last aurochs was killed in this forest in the year 1627.
As a wild animal, then, the aurochs appears to have ceased to exist in the early part of the 17th century; but as a species it survives, for the majority of the domesticated breeds of European cattle are its descendants, all diminished in point of size, and some departing more widely from the original type than others.
Herberstein describes the colour of the aurochs as black, and this is confirmed by another old picture of the animal.
On the other hand, the great tawny draught cattle of Spain seem to indicate mixture with a different stock, the horns having a double curvature, quite different from the simple one of the aurochs type.
According to the German Freiherr von Herberstein (1486-1566), in his Moscovia, of which an Italian translation was published at Venice in 1550, the aurochs survived in Poland (and probably also in Hungary) during the latter middle ages.
From the aurochs (zimbru), in pursuit of which Dragosh first arrived on the banks of the Moldova, is derived the ox-head of the Moldavian national arms, and from his favourite hound who perished in the waters the name of the river.
The aurochs (Bos urns) appears to exist still in the forests of the western Caucasus.