What on Earth Evolved? ... in Brief by Christopher Lloyd

Author:Christopher Lloyd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2010-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

Cow

FAMILY: BOVIDAE

SPECIES: BOS PRIMIGENIUS

RANK: 17

Versatile animals which now pose a serious

threat to the global environment

Jack’s Mother Was beside herself with fury when her young son announced his latest and greatest deal. On the way to market the boy had been persuaded by a traveller to sell the family’s precious dairy cow in exchange for a handful of beans. His mum was right to be cross. The cow was their main source of income and should have fetched a high price. How could she have known that the beans would later grow into a giant beanstalk that would help fearless Jack retrieve the treasure of a miserable giant who lived high up above the clouds?

This nineteenth-century English fairy story reveals the intimate relationship that has evolved between humans and cows. It’s an association that stretches back at least 8,000 years to when wild aurochs, which originated in India about two million years ago, began to be domesticated by humans in the Near East. Domesticating a beast like the aurochs was no mean achievement. In the wild these animals sought safety from attack by wolves by gathering into vast herds, fleeing at the first sign of an approaching predator. Contrast this with the scene of a pastoral milkmaid, approaching confidently with her three-legged stool. She pats the cow on the back, places her stool on the ground beneath its giant udders and proceeds to squeeze them rhythmically until the compliant cow lets down her milk and the maid’s pail is filled.

No one really knows how such an extraordinary transformation in animal behaviour was actually achieved. Domestic dairy cows are the same species as wild aurochs, but over thousands of generations of living with humans these creatures have proved pliable enough to provide man with a wider range of goods and services than any other living creature. The success of cows is reflected in their present populations. Estimated at 1.3 billion individuals, these are the most well kept, highly bred, populous domestic farm species of all time.

It is thought that the first domestic cattle emerged in Mesopotamia. They were farmed by the same people who pioneered the husbandry of sheep for their wool and milk (see Sheep). Perhaps they persuaded the wild aurochs to approach their human settlements by leaving supplies of salt and water nearby as bait. As the animals ate the salt, these Neolithic humans may have approached and stroked them, teaching them to have nothing to fear from the presence of humankind. Charles Darwin revealed that instinct is an inherited trait, and once fear was bred out of their system, compliance in cows took its place.

Cows became so important to the wellbeing of some societies, for example in India, that they are regarded as sacred animals (see HIV/AIDS) – provided by the gods as a source of milk and labour – and far too precious to be slaughtered for meat. In Asia, castrated male humped cattle, commonly known as oxen, have been the primary source of automotive power for pulling carts and ploughs for thousands of years.

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