There are not many large animals that have really been domesticated by humans, and only a few kinds of horses, donkeys, cattle and camels are used for service, of which horses and donkeys are the world's unified models, camels are divided into dromedary camels and bactrian camels, and at most large alpacas, and cattle are much more complex than these old ones.
Fig. 1: Swamp type buffalo
The cattle favored by humans mainly involve two genera of the cattle subfamily of the bovine family: the bovine genus and the buffalo genus. There is no doubt that the domesticated buffalo/Bubalus arnee is definitely a member of the buffalo genus. Buffalo is not hardy by nature, the south is more common, the north is nothing, at most to the banks of the Huai River, the brick family did not see the buffalo in Hong'an County, Hubei Province until the 90s of the last century, and had a close contact with it.
Picture 2: Penang River buffalo, river type
There are two types of domestic buffalo, river type and swamp type, listed as two subspecies, most of china's buffalo belong to the latter, only Yunnan's Penang River buffalo is the former. River-type buffalo have a darker body color, close to pure black, and the double horn is very distorted, almost in the form of sheep's horns; while the swamp-type buffalo is generally gray to gray-black, and the double horns are like a bright moon machete, which is majestic. The number of chromosomes is also different between the two types, the former 2n=50 and the latter 2n=48, but there is no reproductive isolation.
Figure 3: Swamp type buffalo
According to legend, Taishang Laojun's mount is a green bull with a horn, and he was once a demon in the netherworld, and even the monkey could not help it. What is a green cow? Basically, it can be concluded that it is a swamp type buffalo. Cattle and capable riders, mostly buffaloes, cover the body with a flat back, and a gentle temperament. "Plate horns" are more characteristic of buffaloes, and the horns such as cattle are cylindrical. p.s. Scalpers are not unmountable, but rare.
Figure 4: Russie cattle
Figure 5: Black and white flower cow
There are slightly more domesticated species in the genus, and we are of course most familiar with the hard-working cattle /Bos taurus, which are mainly yellow in coat, but also have other colors such as black and reddish brown, and the famous Dutch black and white flower cows also belong to the cattle series. Chinese has always revered the yellow bull as a "yellow haired bodhisattva", and in the era of no mechanization, the yellow bull has made indelible and great merits for mankind, and still exerts residual heat in some places where mechanical forces cannot reach.
Fig. 6: Ancestor of domestic cattle, original European cattle
Figure 7: African domestic cattle
It is generally believed that cattle were domesticated from european cattle and mixed with other pedigrees. The last original cow died in Poland in 1627 and was declared extinct, and its domesticated descendants spread around the world, forming a family of domestic cattle of various shapes, all of which shared a Latin literary name, Bostaurus. Despite their very different appearances, they are all brothers with broken bones and tendons, including African domestic cattle with huge double horns. The vast majority of beef milk we come into contact with in our daily lives is produced by domestic cattle.
Figure 8: Domestic yak
Figure 9: Wild yak
The second familiar is the yak/Bos mutus known as the "Boat of the Plateau", even if you haven't seen it, you must have heard about it. Yak is divided into domestic yak and wild yak, wild yak is the wild ancestor of domestic yak, still living freely on the vast plateau, ranked among the national key protected wildlife. The whole body of the yak is a treasure, and the Tibetan people are inseparable from it, which is an important source of livelihood and economy for herders on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and is also an indispensable and important livestock breed in the local animal husbandry economy.
Figure 10: Calves
Yaks and cattle can cross, but have reproductive isolation. Hybrid offspring are called calves, the female is fertile, and the male has normal secondary sexual characteristics and can estrus, but cannot produce normal sperm. Herders breed calves, apparently not to do biological research, but to meet the needs of socio-economic development. The calf combines the strengths of yaks and cattle, whether for service, meat or milk, and has made excellent contributions to the development history of The Qinghai-Tibet society, and its role even exceeds that of yaks. Without the calves, the value of the yaks would also be greatly reduced.
Figure 11: Tumor cattle
In addition to cattle and yaks, there are also tumor cattle/Bos indicus and large-front cattle in parts of southern China. Tumor cattle originated in India, two ears large and overhanging, because there is a muscle tissue in the mane nail bulge like a tumor and named, for the tropical region of the endemic cattle breeds, there are milk, meat and service and other types, China's ancient called calf or calf. Tumor cattle and cattle are closely related, and there is evidence that tumor cattle are also derived from European raw cattle. The southern breed of Cattle in China is mixed with the blood of tumor cattle, and the unique shoulder characteristics of tumor cattle are still retained.
Figure 12: Large-fronted cattle
The Large-fronted Cattle /Bos Frontalis is a rare and precious breed, named after the wide forehead height between the two horns, also known as the single dragon cow. It is believed to be a domesticated species of the white-limbed bison/Bos gaurus, and the Latin scientific name is also written as Bos gaurus var. Frontalis, others, believe that this is a separate species in the genus Bovine, and the latter seems to have the upper hand in both views. The appearance of the large-fronted cattle is also similar to that of the white-limbed bison, with a black body and white lower limbs, and a large body, weighing up to 1,000 pounds. This non-arrogant behemoth is difficult to control, basically in a semi-wild and half-domestic state, mainly for meat.
There is a paper entitled "Comparative Study of the Chromosomes of the Five Species of Cattle (Bos) in China", which mentions the chromosomes of five species of cattle (cattle genus): cattle 2n=60, tumor cattle (peak cattle) 2n=60, yaks 2n=60, large-front cattle 2n=58, white-limbed bison 2n=56, and pointed out that "between scalpers, tumor cattle and yaks and large-front cattle, between large-front cattle and white-limbed bisons, there is exactly one Robertson translocation." The paper suggests that these cattle are more closely related, and that karyotype differences may have been formed evolutionaryly through the fusion or break of chromosomal centromere dots.
Figure XIII
Figure 14: About large-fronted cattle
Improved hybridization experiments on cattle have proved that cattle and tumor cattle are closely related to each other and can blend with each other without any reproductive obstacles; the hybrid offspring of tumor cattle and yaks are as infertile as the aforementioned calves; and buffalo and cattle, tumor cattle, and yaks are incompatible and cannot cross. There is little information about large-fronted cattle, no authoritative information has been found, and it is speculated that it can be hybridized with other species of cattle, and the females of the hybrid offspring should be fertile, and the males are not necessarily. There is a textual introduction in Figure 14, but the language is not detailed.
Figure 15: Balinese cattle (Javanese bison)
A total of 5 species of cattle, buffalo and cattle are introduced as domestic cattle, and 4 species of buffalo and cattle are introduced, in fact, 1 species of cattle genus, Balinese cattle /Bos javanicus, is domesticated from the Javanese bison in Southeast Asia. Javan bison resembles a yellow bull with a distinctive disc-shaped white spot on the rump, white-limbed bison on all fours, and white-hair below the knees. It is said that there were also sporadic Balinese cattle in the country, and perhaps they are long gone.
Figure 16: American bison
In the bovine subfamily , there is an American bison genus , which is closer to the genus Bovine. There is only one living species in the genus, the American bison bison, which is plump and larger than the white-limbed bison. Since there is so much meat, it is inevitable to be targeted by humans, the United States and Canada have used it to improve beef cattle breeds, "Bifaro cattle" is a mixture of red Angus cattle and American bison.
Of course, American bison and beef cattle have reproductive isolation, and the males in the hybrid offspring are naturally castrated, and it is said that it was after thousands of hybridization experiments to overcome the obstacle of male sterility and breed new beef cattle breeds. A thousand times yay! In order to satisfy the appetite, people and cows are very tired.
P.S. When it comes to domesticated large animals, many people think of the service Asian elephants that worked as laborers in Southeast Asia, but the Asian elephants are not domesticated domestic animals, because the definition of domestication includes the condition of "mature artificial breeding", and the service Asian elephants come from the capture of juvenile elephants rather than artificial breeding.