What it is
The aurochs was a large wild bovine and the principal ancestor of domestic cattle. IUCN lists it as Extinct. Its genes persist in living cows; the wild form does not.
Range
Europe, much of Asia, and North Africa in the Holocene, after a Late Pleistocene expansion into ice-free land. By the Middle Ages it was already a forest and marshland remnant in Europe.
What happened
Hunting and the conversion of woodland and wetland to farms steadily removed the wild animal. A Polish royal forest at Jaktorów held the last documented herd. The last animal there died in 1627. Later “aurochs” breeding projects produce cattle that look similar; they are not the extinct species returned.
When / status
Extinct, 1627, Jaktorów Forest, Poland.
Human role
Hunting and agriculture erased the wild form; domestication kept only a genetic echo.
Sources
IUCN Red List (Bos primigenius, EX); Polish historical record of the 1627 Jaktorów death.