When did the buffalo roam? Punctuation?

[RonO]

They have solved a small mystery of the European bison. It seemed to be
specially created. It had no ancient fossil record and seemed to appear
on the order of around 20,000 years ago. They have sequenced the genome
and also gotten DNA sequence from recent fossils. It turns out that the
species was created by a hybridization event between Auroch (progenitors
of domestic cattle) and steppe bison. It looks like the population was
derived from female hybrids because the extant European bison retain the
Auroch mitochondrial genome (maternally transmitted). This makes sense
because cattle and American bison create hybrid males with the usual
reduced male fertility that is due to the fact that their Y chromosome
comes from one species and their X chromosome comes from another and the
two sex chromosomes are incompatible in that they do not produce fertile
males. The females with one X chromosome from each species (have a full
set of female genes) can be backcrossed to one of the progenitor
species. It seems that the Auroch mito genome won out. Bison and
Auroch are around 3 million years divergent from each other. Some
fossil European bison still have the steppe bison mito genome so at one
time there was a mix of maternal types, but now they only found Auroch
mito among the bison surviving bison that they sequenced.

The European bison retains around 10% of the Auroch genome, so there was
a lot of backcrossing to steppe bison to get a stable population.

Around the time of of the glacial maximum (around 20,000 years ago) the
European bison started to take over territory of the parent species
(steppe bison) which eventually went extinct.

This is actually an example of punctuated equilibrium. A new species
took over the fossil record within a 30,000 year period. The transition
times for most punctuated events is on the order of 100,000 years.

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13158

The paper should be free to download.

Ron Okimoto

[eridanus]

If I understood well, the European bison was composited of hybrid females between Auroch and and step bison, while the males were ordinary steppe
bison or Auroch. For male hybrids were infertile. Quite interesting.

eri

[RonO]

After hybridization the males were likely steppe bison because that is
what the genetics tells us. Somewhere in Europe or Asia the Auroch and
steppe bison crossed and the Auroch genetics got mixed into the local
steppe bison population. 10% of the genomes of the current population
is Auroch. It is like how humans outside of Africa are a couple percent
Neandertal, except the difference in divergence times is significant.
We separated from Neandertals only around half a million years ago, but
steppe bison and Auroch separated around 3 million years ago.

Both Auroch and the original steppe bison are extinct and the hybrid
steppe bison took over the range of the original parent species in a
short period of time on the order of around 10 to 20 thousand years in
the fossil record. Morphologically the hybrids are noticeably different
from the pure steppe bison, so it looked like a new species appeared
without an extensive fossil record.

Ron Okimoto

[eridanus]

then they all mixed their genes, except the sexual genes of the males, that
were either from some male ancestor; steppe bison or Auroch.

The actual cows in Asia or Europe must look more auroch or more bison, I
suppose.

Eri

[Mike Dworetsky]

There was a recent article in the London Times about a prehistoric bison in
Europe, for which the only evidence so far was some DNA in bison bones, but
which also appears in a cave painting of about 15000 years ago, showing
something that is neither an aurochs nor cattle, but something else in
between. Because it is so elusive, the archaeologists have dubbed it the
"Higgs Bison".

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/1018/Did-cave-art-and-ancient-DNA-solve-Higgs-bison-mystery

and many other newspapers. The "Higgs Boson" was recently confirmed at CERN
50 years after it was predicted.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

[jillery]

Thanks to your cite, I learned a new word; wisent. Now I can relax
guilt-free for the rest of the day.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[eridanus]

The faithful can accept the Higgs Boson or Bison as a miracle of god.
Nothing is impossible for the power of god. Not even a hybrid of bison and
auroch. It is only a question of faith.

As the rhyme says,

Pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold,
pease pudding in a pot nine days old.
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
some like it in a pot nine days old.

That is the will of god almighty. The true god can be Brahma, or Zeus,
or Krishna, or Allah, Odin or Thor.
Some like it hot, some like it cold.

You see, nothing is impossible for a believer. Not even the flying horses
of the ancient Greeks.

Eri

[Robert Carnegie]

On Sunday, 23 October 2016 00:10:03 UTC+1, Ron O wrote:
> They have solved a small mystery of the European bison.

That "Aurochs" is singular but it ends with letter s? ;-)

It's a wise Ent that can face them in the plural, which
of courses is aurochses, similar to hobbitses. :-)

[Burkhard]

Or you could stick w
ith the origin plural in Soval Phare ("Westron") and have it as
Aurochsen. :o)