India's wonderful wild ox

A recent re-post by Darren Naish reminded me, as his posts can do, of one of the most impressive chunks of wildlife I've seen of late. Earlier in the year I went to India looking for mammals. There is of course one indian mammal which is more sought after than all others but many of my favourite recollections involve what is basically a big cow.



The Gaur, Bos gaurus, is the world's largest wild bovine. It is gargantuan. I'm not going to say too much about these photos. Just drink in the impressiveness of this beastie.



They also have a certain degree of panache compared to most bovids, check out the attitude above. One thing "primitive" domestic cattle like highlands or heck cattle seem to lack for me is the swagger the wild species seem to have. This is the attitude I want from my aurochs.....



Gaur apparently got hit very hard by a number of diseases of domestic cattle and so a number of populations have died out and are in the process of being re-introduced. I hope this goes well, I'd love to see those white stockings again in other wild places some time.

It's worth noting they also possess a fair old turn of speed once they get going....