title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: these units survived to the camp's liberation. The prisoners' day began at 4:30 am (an hour later in winter) with morning roll call. Dr. Miklós Nyiszli describes roll call as beginning 3:00 am and lasting four hours. The weather was cold in Auschwitz at that time of day, even in summer. The prisoners were ordered to line up outdoors in rows of five and had to stay there until 07:00, when the SS officers arrived. Meanwhile, the guards would force the prisoners to squat for an hour with their hands above their heads or levy punishments such as beatings or


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: detention for infractions such as having a missing button or an improperly cleaned food bowl. The inmates were counted and re-counted. The prisoners assigned to Mengele's staff slept in a separate barracks and were awoken at 07:00 for a roll call that only took a few minutes. Nyiszli describes how even the dead had to be present at roll call, standing supported by their fellow inmates until the ordeal was over. When he was a prisoner in 1944–45, five to ten men were found dead in the barracks each night. Anyone who was ill was sent to the hospital for


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: a determination as to whether or not they would recover quickly; those who failed this assessment were killed by lethal injection. Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and sent to the gas chambers any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed. After roll call, the "Kommando", or work details, walked to their place of work, five abreast, wearing striped camp fatigues, no underwear, and ill-fitting wooden shoes without socks. A prisoner's orchestra (such as the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz) was forced to play cheerful music as the workers left the camp. "Kapos" were responsible for


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: the prisoners' behavior while they worked, as was an SS escort. The working day lasted 12 hours during the summer and a little less in the winter. Much of the work took place outdoors at construction sites, gravel pits, and lumber yards. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner was assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels. Sunday was not a work day, but the prisoners did not rest; they were required to clean the barracks and take their weekly shower. Prisoners were allowed to write (in German) to their


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: families on Sundays. Inmates who did not speak German would trade some of their bread to another inmate for help composing their letters. Members of the SS censored the outgoing mail. A second mandatory roll call took place in the evening. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing in place until he was either found or the reason for his absence discovered, regardless of the weather conditions, even if it took hours. After roll call, individual and collective punishments were meted out, depending on what had happened during the day, before the prisoners were allowed to


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: retire to their blocks for the night and receive their bread rations and water. Curfew was two or three hours later. The prisoners slept in long rows of wooden bunks, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen. According to Nyiszli, "Eight hundred to a thousand people were crammed into the superimposed compartments of each barracks. Unable to stretch out completely, they slept there both lengthwise and crosswise, with one man's feet on another's head, neck, or chest. Stripped of all human dignity, they pushed and shoved and bit and kicked each other in


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: an effort to get a few more inches' space on which to sleep a little more comfortably. For they did not have long to sleep". The types of prisoners were distinguishable by triangular pieces of cloth, called "Winkel", sewn onto on their jackets below their prisoner number. Political prisoners had a red triangle, Jehovah's Witnesses had purple, criminals had green, and so on. The nationality of the inmate was indicated by a letter stitched onto the "Winkel". Jews had a yellow triangle, overlaid by a second "Winkel" if they also fit into a second category. Uniquely at Auschwitz, prisoners were


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: tattooed with their prisoner number, on the chest for Soviet prisoners of war and on the left arm for civilians. A racial hierarchy existed, with German prisoners at the top. Next were non-Jewish prisoners from other countries. Jewish prisoners were at the bottom. Prisoners received a hot drink in the morning, but no breakfast, and a thin meatless vegetable soup at noon. In the evening they received a small ration of moldy bread. Most prisoners saved some of the bread for the following morning. Nyiszli notes the daily intake did not exceed 700 calories, except for prisoners being subjected to


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: live medical experimentation, who were better fed and clothed. Sanitary arrangements were poor, with inadequate latrines and a lack of fresh water. In Auschwitz II-Birkenau, latrines were not installed until 1943, two years after camp construction began. The camps were infested with vermin such as disease-carrying lice, and the inmates suffered and died in epidemics of typhus and other diseases. Noma, a bacterial infection occurring among the malnourished, was a common cause of death among children in the Gypsy camp. Block 11 of Auschwitz I was the prison within the prison, where violators of the numerous rules were punished. Some


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: prisoners were made to spend the nights in standing cells. These cells were about , and held four men; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced during the day to work with the other prisoners. Prisoners sentenced to death for attempting to escape were confined in a dark cell and given neither food nor water while being left to die. In the basement were the "dark cells", which had only a very tiny window and a solid door. Prisoners placed in these cells gradually suffocated as they used up all the oxygen in the cell; sometimes the SS


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: lit a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs for hours, even days, thus dislocating their shoulder joints. Self-identifying Jews made every effort to observe Jewish tradition in the camps, despite the danger. Jews held it important to keep track of the Hebrew calendar, which was the key to determining the dates of the holy holidays, the Sabbath, and the Torah excerpts to be read each Sabbath. No watches, calendars, or clocks were allowed in the camps. Jewish calendars were rare amongst prisoners, as being


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: in possession of one or making one was dangerous. Only two Jewish calendars made in Auschwitz survived to the end of the war. Prisoners kept track of the days in other ways, such as obtaining information from newcomers. On 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorization to Heydrich, Chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), to prepare and submit a plan for "Die Endlösung der Judenfrage" (the Final Solution of the Jewish question) in territories under German control and to coordinate the participation of all involved government organizations. The resulting "Generalplan Ost" (General Plan for the East) called


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia, for use as slave labor or to be murdered. In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis also planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan. Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists. Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalized at the Wannsee Conference


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: on 20 January 1942. Some would be worked to death and the rest would be killed. Initially the victims were killed with gas vans or by "Einsatzgruppen" firing squads, but these methods proved impracticable for an operation of this scale. By 1942, killing centers at Auschwitz, Sobibór, Treblinka, and other Nazi extermination camps replaced "Einsatzgruppen" as the primary method of mass killing. The first mass exterminations at Auschwitz took place in early September 1941, when 900 Soviet prisoners of war and ill inmates were killed by gathering them in the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B.


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: This building proved unsuitable for mass gassings, so the site of the killings was moved to the crematorium at Auschwitz I (Crematorium I, which operated until July 1942). There, more than 700 victims could be killed at once. In order to keep the victims calm, they were told they were to undergo disinfection and de-lousing. They were ordered to undress outside and then were locked in the building and gassed. After its decommissioning as a gas chamber, the building was converted to a storage facility and later served as an air raid shelter for the SS. The gas chamber and


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: crematorium were reconstructed after the war using the original components, which remained on site. Some 60,000 people were killed at Crematorium I. Mass exterminations were moved to two provisional gas chambers (Bunkers 1 and 2), where the killings continued while the larger Crematoria II, III, IV, and V were under construction. Bunker 2 was temporarily reactivated from May to November 1944, when large numbers of Hungarian Jews were exterminated. In summer 1944 the capacity of the crematoria and outdoor incineration pits was 20,000 bodies per day. A planned sixth facility—Crematorium VI—was never built. Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: Europe by rail, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, the SS were conducting "selections". Incoming Jews were segregated; those deemed able to work were sent to the selection officer's right and admitted into the camp, and those deemed unfit for labor were sent to the selection officer's left and immediately gassed. The group selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit. After the selection process was complete, those too


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: ill or too young to walk to the crematoria were transported there on trucks or killed on the spot with a bullet to the head. The belongings of the arrivals were seized by the SS and sorted in an area of the camp called "Canada", so called because Canada was seen as a land of plenty. Many of the SS at the camp enriched themselves by pilfering the confiscated property. SS officers told the victims they were to take a shower and undergo delousing. The victims undressed in an outer chamber and walked into the gas chamber, which was disguised


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: as a shower facility. Some were even issued soap and a towel. The Zyklon B was delivered by ambulance to the crematoria by a special SS bureau known as the Hygienic Institute. The actual delivery of the gas to the victims was always handled by the SS, on the order of the supervising SS doctor. After the doors were shut, SS men dumped in the Zyklon B pellets through vents in the roof or holes in the side of the chamber. The victims were dead within 20 minutes. Despite the thick concrete walls, screaming and moaning from within could be


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: heard outside. In one failed attempt to muffle the noise, two motorcycle engines were revved up to full throttle nearby, but the sound of yelling could still be heard over the engines. "Sonderkommando" wearing gas masks then dragged the bodies from the chamber. The victims' glasses, artificial limbs, jewelry, and hair were removed, and any dental work was extracted so the gold could be melted down. The corpses were burned in the nearby incinerators, and the ashes were buried, thrown in the river, or used as fertilizer. The gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from April to July 1944,


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: during the massacre of Hungary's Jews. Hungary was an ally of Germany during the war, but it had resisted turning over its Jews until Germany invaded that March. A rail spur leading directly into Birkenau was completed that May to deliver the victims closer to the gas chambers. From 14 May until early July 1944, 437,000 Hungarian Jews, half of the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day for a considerable part of that period. The incoming volume was so great that the SS resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: in the crematoria. The last mass transports to arrive in Auschwitz were 60,000–70,000 Jews from the Łódź Ghetto, some 2,000 from Theresienstadt, and 8,000 from Slovakia. The last selection took place on 30 October 1944. German doctors performed a wide variety of experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. SS doctors tested the efficacy of X-rays as a sterilization device by administering large doses to female prisoners. Prof Dr Carl Clauberg injected chemicals into women's uteruses in an effort to glue them shut. Bayer, then a subsidiary of IG Farben, bought prisoners to use as research subjects for testing new drugs. Prisoners


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: were also deliberately infected with spotted fever for vaccination research and exposed to toxic substances to study the effects. The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death". Particularly interested in research on identical twins, Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such as inducing diseases in one twin and killing the other when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. He also took a special interest in dwarfs, and he deliberately induced noma in twins, dwarfs, and other prisoners to study the effects. Kurt Heissmeyer took twenty Jewish children from Auschwitz to use in


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: pseudoscientific medical experiments at the Neuengamme concentration camp. In April 1945, the children were killed by hanging to conceal the project. A skeleton collection was obtained from among a pool of 115 Jewish Auschwitz inmates, chosen for their perceived stereotypical racial characteristics. Rudolf Brandt and Wolfram Sievers, general manager of the "Ahnenerbe" (a Nazi research institute), were responsible for delivering the skeletons to the collection of the Anatomy Institute at the Reich University of Strasbourg in the Alsace region of Occupied France. The collection was sanctioned by Himmler and under the direction of August Hirt. Ultimately 87 of the inmates


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: were shipped to Natzweiler-Struthof and killed in August 1943. Brandt and Sievers were later convicted in the Doctors' Trial in Nuremberg. The exact number of victims at Auschwitz is difficult to fix with certainty, because many prisoners were never registered and much evidence was destroyed by the SS in the final days of the war. As early as 1942, Himmler visited the camp and ordered that "all mass graves were to be opened and the corpses burned. In addition the ashes were to be disposed of in such a way that it would be impossible at some future time to


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: calculate the number of corpses burned." Shortly following the camp's liberation, the Soviet government stated that four million people had been killed on the site, a figure now regarded as greatly exaggerated. While under interrogation, Höss said that Adolf Eichmann told him that two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers and about half a million more had died of other causes. Later he wrote, "I regard the figure of two and a half million as far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities". Gerald Reitlinger's 1953 book "The Final Solution" estimated the


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: number killed to be 800,000 to 900,000, and Raul Hilberg's 1961 work "The Destruction of the European Jews" estimated the number killed to be a maximum of 1,000,000 Jewish victims. French chemist and author Jean-Claude Pressac estimates that between 631,000 and 711,000 were killed at Auschwitz, of whom 470,000 to 550,000 were gassed. In 1983, French scholar George Wellers was one of the first to use German data on deportations to estimate the number killed at Auschwitz, arriving at a figure of 1,471,595 deaths, including 1.35 million Jews and 86,675 Poles. A larger study started by Franciszek Piper used timetables


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate at least 960,000 Jewish deaths and at least 1.1 million total deaths, a figure adopted as official by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in the 1990s. Piper stated that a figure of as many as 1.5 million total deaths was possible. By nation, the greatest number of Auschwitz's Jewish victims were from Hungary, accounting for 438,000 deaths, followed by Polish Jews (300,000 deaths), French (69,000), Dutch (60,000), and Greek (55,000). Fewer than one percent of Soviet Jews murdered in the Holocaust were killed in Auschwitz, as German forces had already been driven


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: from Russia when the killing at Auschwitz reached its peak in 1944. Approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp. The next largest group of victims were non-Jewish Poles, who accounted for 70,000 to 75,000 deaths. Twenty-one thousand Roma and Sinti were killed, along with 15,000 Soviet POWs and 10,000 to 15,000 peoples of other nations. Around 400 Jehovah's Witnesses were imprisoned at Auschwitz, at least 152 of whom died. An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 gay men prosecuted under German Penal Code Section 175 (proscribing sexual acts between men) were detained in concentration camps of


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: which an unknown number were sent to Auschwitz; of those sent to Auschwitz 80 percent died. Resistance groups were organised within the camp. Activities included acquiring additional food supplies, undertaking sabotage, and organising escape attempts. An armed uprising was planned for early 1942, but it never took place. Inmates were at times able to distribute information to the outside world via messages used in shortwave radio transmissions. The Polish government-in-exile in London first reported the gassing of prisoners on 21 July 1942. These reports were for a long time disregarded as exaggerated or unreliable by the Allied Powers, Germany's opponents


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: in the West. Information regarding Auschwitz was also available to the Allies during the years 1940–43 by the accurate and frequent reports of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) Captain Witold Pilecki. Pilecki was the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp, spending 945 days there. He gathered evidence of genocide and organized resistance structures known as Związek Organizacji Wojskowej (ZOW) at the camp. His first report was smuggled to the outside world in November 1940, through an inmate who was released from the camp. He eventually escaped on 27 April 1943, but his personal report


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: of mass killings was dismissed as exaggeration by the Allies, as were his previous reports. The first information about Auschwitz concentration camp was published in winter 1940–41 in the Polish underground newspapers "" (Poland Lives) and "Biuletyn Informacyjny" (Newsletter). From 1942, members of the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Warsaw area Home Army published in occupied Poland a few brochures based on the accounts of escapees. The first of these was a fictional memoir "Oświęcim. Pamiętnik więźnia" (Auschwitz: Diary of a prisoner), written by Halina Krahelska and published in April 1942 in Warsaw. Also published in 1942 were


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: the books "Auschwitz: obóz śmierci" (Auschwitz: Camp of Death) written by Natalia Zarembina, and "W piekle" (In Hell) by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, the Polish writer, social activist and founder of Żegota. In 1943, the "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" (Combat Group Auschwitz) was organized with the aim of sending out information about what was happening. "Sonderkommandos" buried notes in the ground, hoping they would be found by the camp's liberators. The group also smuggled out photographs of corpses and preparations for mass killings in mid-1944. The attitude of the Allies changed with receipt of the detailed, 32-page Vrba–Wetzler report, compiled by two Jewish prisoners,


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, who escaped on 7 April 1944. This report finally convinced Allied leaders that mass killings were taking place in Auschwitz. Details from the Vrba-Wetzler report were released to the Swiss press by diplomat George Mantello and printed on 6 June by "The New York Times". Auschwitz Plans originating with the Polish government were provided to the UK foreign ministry in August 1944. A Polish report about Auschwitz titled "Oswiecim, Camp of Death (Underground Report)" with a foreword by Florence Jaffray Harriman was published in English by the Polish Labor Group in New York in March


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: 1944, before the camp's liberation. Gassing of prisoners from 1942 was described in this report. Slovak rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl was the first to suggest, in May 1944, that the Allies bomb the rails leading to Auschwitz. At one point British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered that such a plan be prepared, but he was told that precision bombing the camp to free the prisoners or disrupt the railway was not technically feasible. Although the rails were never bombed, an intercepted cable mentioning the proposal convinced Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy that the Allied bombing of Budapest was connected to the


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: deportation of the Hungarian Jews and was a major factor in his decision to stop the deportation in July 1944. In 1978, historian David Wyman published an essay titled "Why Auschwitz Was Never Bombed", arguing that the United States Army Air Forces had the capability to attack Auschwitz and should have done so; books by Bernard Wasserstein and Martin Gilbert raised similar questions about British inaction. Since the 1990s, other historians have argued that Allied bombing accuracy was not sufficient for Wyman's proposed attack, and that counterfactual history is an inherently problematic endeavor. The controversy over this decision has lasted


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: to the present day in both countries. At least 802 prisoners attempted to escape from the Auschwitz camps, mostly Polish or Soviet prisoners fleeing from work sites outside the camp. 144 were successful. The fates of 331 of the escapees are unknown. A common punishment for escape attempts was death by starvation; the families of successful escapees were sometimes arrested and interned in Auschwitz and prominently displayed to deter others. If someone did manage to escape, the SS picked ten people at random from the prisoner's block and starved them to death. A daring escape from Auschwitz was staged on


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: 20 June 1942 by four Polish prisoners: Eugeniusz Bendera (an auto mechanic at the camp), Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, and Józef Lempart. After breaking into a warehouse, the four dressed as members of the "SS-Totenkopfverbände" (the SS units responsible for concentration camps), armed themselves, and stole an SS staff car, which they then drove unchallenged through the main gate. On 24 June 1944, a Belgian-Polish Jew, Mala Zimetbaum, escaped with her Polish boyfriend, Edek Galiński, dressed in a stolen prisoner-guard uniform. They were later recaptured, tortured, and executed by the SS. On 21 July 1944, inmate Jerzy Bielecki, dressed


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: in an SS uniform and using a faked pass, managed to cross the camp's gate together with his Jewish girlfriend, Cyla. Both survived the war. The "Sonderkommando" units were aware that as witnesses to the killings, they themselves would eventually be killed to hide Nazi crimes. Though they knew that it would mean their deaths, the "Sonderkommandos" of Birkenau "Kommando" III staged an uprising on 7 October 1944, following an announcement that some of them would be selected to be "transferred to another camp"—a common Nazi ruse for the murder of prisoners. The "Sonderkommandos" attacked the SS guards with stones,


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: axes, and makeshift hand grenades, which they also used to damage Crematorium IV and set it afire. As the SS set up machine guns to attack the prisoners in Crematorium IV, the "Sonderkommandos" in Crematorium II also revolted, some of them managing to escape the compound. The rebellion was suppressed by nightfall. Ultimately, three SS guards were killed — one of whom was burned alive by the prisoners in the oven of Crematorium II — and 451 "Sonderkommandos" were killed. Hundreds of prisoners escaped, but were all soon captured and executed, along with an additional group who participated in the


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: revolt. Crematorium IV was destroyed in the fighting, and a group of prisoners in the gas chamber of Crematorium V was spared in the chaos. In the decades since its liberation, Auschwitz has become a primary symbol of the Holocaust. Historian Timothy D. Snyder attributes this to the camp's high death toll as well as to its "unusual combination of an industrial camp complex and a killing facility", which left behind far more witnesses than single-purpose killing facilities such as Chełmno or Treblinka. The United Nations General Assembly has designated 27 January, the date of the camp's liberation, as International


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: Holocaust Remembrance Day. In a speech on the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation, German chancellor Helmut Kohl described Auschwitz as the "darkest and most horrific chapter of German history". Notable memoirists of the camp include Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Tadeusz Borowski. In "If This Is a Man", Levi wrote that the concentration camps represented the epitome of the totalitarian system: Elie Wiesel wrote about his own imprisonment at Auschwitz in "Night" (1960) and other works, and became a prominent spokesman against ethnic violence. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Camp survivor Simone Veil was later elected


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: President of the European Parliament, serving from 1979 to 1982. Two Auschwitz victims—Maximilian Kolbe, a priest who volunteered to die by starvation in place of a stranger, and Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism—were later named saints of the Catholic Church. On 2 July 1947, the Polish government passed a law, establishing a state memorial to the victims of Nazism on the site of the camp. In 1955, an exhibition opened, displaying prisoner mug shots; hair, suitcases, and shoes taken from murdered prisoners; canisters of Zyklon B pellets; and other objects related to the killings. UNESCO added the camp


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: to its list of World Heritage Sites in 1979. In 2011, the museum drew 1,400,000 visitors. Pope John Paul II celebrated mass over the train tracks leading to the camp on 7 June 1979. In the decades following his visit, controversies erupted over a group of Carmelite nuns founding a convent on the site and erecting a large cross originally used in the pope's mass. Protesters objected to what they saw as Christianization of the site, while others argued that the cross's presence effectively recognized the camp's Catholic victims. On 4 September 2003, three Israeli Air Force F-15 Eagles performed


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: a fly-over of Auschwitz-Birkenau during a ceremony at the camp below. The flight was led by Major-General Amir Eshel, the son of Holocaust survivors. On 27 January 2015, some 300 Auschwitz survivors and other guests gathered under a giant tent at the entrance to Auschwitz II Birkenau to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation. Attendees included president of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder, film director Steven Spielberg, and world leaders such as Polish president Bronisław Komorowski and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. As the number of remaining survivors decreases each year, the attendance at the event is


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: unlikely to be surpassed at future major anniversaries. Museum curators consider visitors who pick up items from the ground to be thieves, and local police will charge them as such. The maximum penalty is a prison sentence of ten years. On 22 June 2015, two British youths from the Perse School were convicted of theft after picking up buttons and shards of decorative glass they found on the ground near the area where camp victims' confiscated personal effects were stored. The boys, both 17 years old, received probation and were fined £170, but later appealed the sentence. Curators said that


title: "Auschwitz concentration camp" content: similar incidents happen once or twice a year. Some of the roads among postwar buildings nearby are named commemoratively, for example Więżniów Oświęcimia (translates as "Prisoners of Oświęcim"), Obozowa ("Camp"), Ostatni Etap ("Last Stage"), Spóldzielców ("Co-op Workers"), Ofiar Faszyzmu ("Victims of Fascism"), Piwniczna ("Cellars"), Wyzwolenia ("Liberation"), Maximiliana Kolbego ("of Maximilian Kolbe"). Stefana Jaracza ("of Stefan Jaracz"). Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It consisted of (the original concentration camp), Auschwitz II–Birkenau (a combined concentration/extermination camp), (a labor camp to


title: "Augustine of Hippo" content: a central figure and considered the father like a stranger. Scholars generally agree that Augustine and his family were Berbers, an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa, but that they were heavily Romanized, speaking only Latin at home as a matter of pride and dignity. In his writings, Augustine leaves some information as to the consciousness of his African heritage. For example, he refers to Apuleius as "the most notorious of us Africans," to Ponticianus as "a country man of ours, insofar as being African," and to Faustus of Mileve as "an African Gentleman". Augustine's family name, Aurelius, suggests that


title: "Augustine of Hippo" content: to Annaba. It now rests in the Saint Augustin Basilica within a glass tube inserted into the arm of a life-size marble statue of the saint. Augustine's large contribution of writings covered diverse fields including theology, philosophy and sociology. Along with John Chrysostom, Augustine was among the most prolific scholars of the early church by quantity of surviving writings. Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with a very clear vision of theological anthropology. He saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: soul and body. In his late treatise "" (420 AD) he


title: "Alcoholics Anonymous" content: the auspices of the Oxford Group, a Group associate pastor sermonized against Wilson and his alcoholic Groupers for forming a "secret, ashamed sub-group" engaged in "divergent works". By 1937, Wilson separated from the Oxford Group. AA Historian Ernest Kurtz described the split: ...more and more, Bill discovered that new adherents could get sober by believing in each other and in the strength of this group. Men [no women were members yet] who had proven over and over again, by extremely painful experience, that they could not get sober on their own had somehow become more powerful when two or three


title: "Ann Arbor, Michigan" content: of products (bake shop, mail order, creamery, coffee) and services (business education). Flint Ink Corp., another Ann Arbor-based company, was the world's largest privately held ink manufacturer until it was acquired by Stuttgart-based XSYS Print Solutions in October 2005. Avfuel, a global supplier of aviation fuels and services, is also headquartered in Ann Arbor. Aastrom Biosciences, a publicly traded company that develops stem cell treatments for cardiovascular diseases, is also headquartered in Ann Arbor. Many cooperative enterprises were founded in the city; among those that remain are the People's Food Co-op and the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan,


title: "Arctic fox" content: Arctic fox The Arctic fox ("Vulpes lagopus"), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. It is well adapted to living in cold environments, and is best known for its thick, warm fur that is also used as camouflage. On average, Arctic foxes only live 3–4 years in the wild. Its body length ranges from , with a generally rounded body shape to minimize the escape of body heat. The Arctic fox preys on many small creatures


title: "Arctic fox" content: such as lemmings, voles, ringed seal pups, fish, waterfowl, and seabirds. It also eats carrion, berries, seaweed, and insects and other small invertebrates. Arctic foxes form monogamous pairs during the breeding season and they stay together to raise their young in complex underground dens. Occasionally, other family members may assist in raising their young. Natural predators of the Arctic fox are golden eagles, polar bears, wolverines, red foxes, wolves, and grizzly bears. Arctic foxes must endure a temperature difference of up to 90-100 °C between the external environment and their internal core temperature. To prevent heat loss, the Arctic fox


title: "Arctic fox" content: curls up tightly tucking its legs and head under its body and behind its furry tail. This position gives the fox the smallest surface area to volume ratio and protects the least insulated areas. Arctic foxes also stay warm by getting out of the wind and residing in their dens. Although the Arctic fox is active year-round and do not hibernate, they attempt to preserve fat by reducing their locomotor activity. They build up their fat reserves in the autumn, sometimes increasing their body weight by more than 50%. This provides greater insulation during the winter and a source of


title: "Arctic fox" content: energy when food is scarce . In the spring, the Arctic fox's attention switches to reproduction and a home for their potential offspring. They live in large dens in frost-free, slightly raised ground. These are complex systems of tunnels covering as much as and are often in eskers, long ridges of sedimentary material deposited in formerly glaciated regions. These dens may be in existence for many decades and are used by many generations of foxes. Arctic foxes tend to select dens that are easily accessible with many entrances, and that are clear from snow and ice making it easier to


title: "Arctic fox" content: burrow in. The Arctic fox builds and chooses dens that face southward towards the sun, which makes the den warmer. Arctic foxes prefer large, maze-like dens for predator evasion and a quick escape especially when red foxes are in the area. Natal dens are typically found in rugged terrain, which may provide more protection for the pups. But, the parents will also relocate litters to nearby dens to avoid predators. When red foxes are not in the region, Arctic foxes will use dens that the red fox previously occupied. Shelter quality is more important to the Arctic fox than the


title: "Arctic fox" content: proximity of spring prey to a den. The main prey in the tundra is lemmings, which is why the white fox is often called the “lemming fox.” The white fox's reproduction rates reflect the lemming population density, which cyclically fluctuates every 3-5 years. When lemmings are abundant, the white fox can give birth to 18 pups, but they often do not reproduce when food is scarce. The “coastal fox” or blue fox lives in an environment where food availability is relatively consistent, and they will have up to 5 pups every year. Breeding usually takes place in April and May,


title: "Arctic fox" content: and the gestation period is about 52 days. Litters may contain as many as 25 (the largest litter size in the order Carnivora). The young emerge from the den when 3 to 4 weeks old and are weaned by 9 weeks of age. Arctic foxes are primarily monogamous and both parents will care for the offspring. When predators and prey are abundant, Arctic foxes are more likely to be promiscuous (exhibited in both males and females) and display more complex social structures. Larger packs of foxes consisting of breeding or non-breeding males or females can guard a single territory more


title: "Arctic fox" content: proficiently to increase pup survival. When resources are scarce, competition increases and the number of foxes in a territory decreases. On the coasts of Svalbard, the frequency of complex social structures is larger than inland foxes that remain monogamous due to food availability. In Scandinavia, there are more complex social structures compared to other populations due to the presence of the red fox. Also, conservationists are supplying the declining population with supplemental food. One unique case, however, is Iceland where monogamy is the most prevalent. The older offspring (1-year-olds) often remain within their parent's territory even though predators are absent


title: "Arctic fox" content: and there are fewer resources, which may indicate kin selection in the fox. Arctic foxes generally eat any small animal they can find, including lemmings, voles, other rodents, hares, birds, eggs, fish, and carrion. They scavenge on carcasses left by larger predators such as wolves and polar bears, and in times of scarcity even eat their feces. In areas where they are present, lemmings are their most common prey, and a family of foxes can eat dozens of lemmings each day. In some locations in northern Canada, a high seasonal abundance of migrating birds that breed in the area may


title: "Arctic fox" content: provide an important food source. On the coast of Iceland and other islands, their diet consists predominantly of birds. During April and May, the Arctic fox also preys on ringed seal pups when the young animals are confined to a snow den and are relatively helpless. They also consume berries and seaweed, so they may be considered omnivores. This fox is a significant bird-egg predator, consuming eggs of all except the largest tundra bird species. When food is overabundant, the Arctic fox buries (caches) the surplus as a reserve. Arctic foxes survive harsh winters and food scarcity by either hoarding


title: "Arctic fox" content: food or storing body fat. Fat is deposited subcutaneously and viscerally in Arctic foxes. At the beginning of winter, the foxes have approximately 14740 kJ of energy storage from fat alone. Using the lowest BMR value measured in Arctic foxes, an average sized fox (3.5 kg) would need 471 kJ/day during the winter to survive. Arctic foxes can acquire goose eggs (from greater snow geese in Canada) at a rate of 2.7-7.3eggs/h, and they store 80-97% of them. Scats provide evidence that they eat the eggs during the winter after caching. Isotope analysis shows that eggs can still be eaten


title: "Arctic fox" content: after a year, and the metabolizable energy of a stored goose egg only decreases by 11% after 60 days (a fresh egg has about 816 kJ). Researchers have also noted that some eggs stored in the summer are accessed later the following spring prior to reproduction. The Arctic fox lives in some of the most frigid extremes on the planet, but they do not start to shiver until the temperature drops to . Among its adaptations for survival in the cold is its dense, multilayered pelage, which provides excellent insulation. Additionally, the Arctic fox is the only canid whose foot


title: "Arctic fox" content: pads are covered in fur. There are two genetically distinct coat color morphs: white and blue. In the winter the white morph is white in color and turns brown along the back with light grey around the abdomen in summer. The blue morph is often a dark blue, brown, or grey color year-round. Although the blue allele is dominant over the white allele, 99% of the Arctic fox population is the white morph. The fur of the Arctic fox provides the best insulation of any mammal. The fox has a low surface area to volume ratio, as evidenced by its


title: "Arctic fox" content: generally compact body shape, short muzzle and legs, and short, thick ears. Since less of its surface area is exposed to the Arctic cold, less heat escapes from its body. The Arctic fox has a functional hearing range between 125 Hz–16 kHz with a sensitivity that is ≤ 60 dB in air, and an average peak sensitivity of 24 dB at 4 kHz. Overall, the Arctic foxes hearing is less sensitive than the dog and the kit fox. The Arctic fox and the kit fox have a low upper-frequency limit compared to the domestic dog and other carnivores. The Arctic


title: "Arctic fox" content: fox can easily hear lemmings burrowing under 4-5 inches of snow. When it has located its prey, it pounces and punches through the snow to catch its victim. The Arctic fox also has a keen sense of smell. They can smell carcasses that are often left by polar bears anywhere from 10–40 km. It is possible that they use their sense of smell to also track down polar bears. Additionally, Arctic foxes can smell and find frozen lemmings under 46–77 cm of snow, and can detect a subnivean seal lair under 150 cm of snow. The Arctic fox contains advantageous


title: "Arctic fox" content: genes to overcome extreme cold and starvation periods. Transcriptome sequencing has identified two genes that are under positive selection: Glycolipid transfer protein domain containing 1 (GLTPD1) and V-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog 2 (AKT2). GLTPD1 is involved in the fatty acid metabolism, while AKT2 pertains to the glucose metabolism and insulin signaling. The average mass specific BMR and total BMR are 37% and 27% lower in the winter than the summer. The Arctic fox decreases its BMR via metabolic depression in the winter to conserve fat storage and minimize energy requirements. According to the most recent data, the lower


title: "Arctic fox" content: critical temperature of the Arctic fox is at -7 °C in the winter and 5 °C in the summer. It was commonly believed that the Arctic fox had a lower critical temperature below -40 °C. However, some scientists have concluded that this stat is not accurate since it was never tested using the proper equipment. About 22% of the total body surface area of the Arctic fox dissipates heat readily compared to red foxes at 33%. The regions that have the greatest heat loss are the nose, ears, legs, and feet, which is useful in the summer for thermal heat


title: "Arctic fox" content: regulation. Also, the Arctic fox has a beneficial mechanism in their nose for evaporative cooling like dogs, which keeps the brain cool during the summer and exercise. The thermal conductivity of Arctic fox fur in the summer and winter is the same; however, the thermal conductance of the Arctic fox in the winter is lower than the summer since fur thickness increases by 140%. In the summer, the thermal conductance of the Arctic foxes body is 114% higher than the winter, but their body core temperature is constant year-round. One way that Arctic foxes regulate their body temperature is by


title: "Arctic fox" content: utilizing a countercurrent heat exchange in the blood of their legs. Arctic foxes can constantly keep their feet above the tissue freezing point (-1 °C) when standing on cold substrates without losing mobility or feeling pain. They do this by increasing vasodilation and blood flow to a capillary rete in the pad surface, which is in direct contact with the snow rather than the entire foot. They selectively vasoconstrict blood vessels in the center of the foot pad, which conserves energy and minimizes heat loss. Arctic foxes maintain the temperature in their paws independently from the core temperature. If the


title: "Arctic fox" content: core temperature drops, the pad of the foot will remain constantly above the tissue freezing point. The average head-and-body length of the male is , with a range of , while the female averages with a range of . In some regions, no difference in size is seen between males and females. The tail is about long in both sexes. The height at the shoulder is . On average males weigh , with a range of , while females average , with a range of . "Vulpes lagopus" is a 'true fox' belonging to the genus "Vulpes" of the fox


title: "Arctic fox" content: tribe Vulpini, which consists of 12 extant species. It is classified under the subfamily Caninae of the canid family Canidae. Although it has previously been assigned to its own monotypic genus "Alopex", recent genetic evidence now places it in the genus "Vulpes" along with the majority of other foxes. It was originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of "Systema Naturae" in 1758 as "Canis lagopus". The type specimen was recovered from Lapland, Sweden. The generic name "vulpes" is Latin for "fox". The specific name "lagopus" is derived from Ancient Greek λαγώς ("lagōs", "hare") and πούς ("pous", "foot"),


title: "Arctic fox" content: referring to the hair on its feet similar to those found in cold-climate species of hares. Looking at the most recent phylogeny, the Arctic fox diverged from the domesticated dog ("Canis lupus familiaris") at approximately 12 MYA. The Arctic fox and the red fox ("Vulpes vulpes") diverged approximately 3.17MYA. Additionally, the Arctic fox diverged from its sister group, the kit fox ("Vulpes macrotis"), at about 0.9MYA. The origins of the Arctic fox have been described by the “out of Tibet” hypothesis. On the Tibetan Plateau, fossils of the extinct ancestral Arctic fox ("Vulpes qiuzhudingi") from the early Pliocene (5.08-3.6 MYA)


title: "Arctic fox" content: were found along with many other precursors of modern mammals that evolved during the Pliocene (5.3-2.6 MYA). It is believed that this ancient fox is the ancestor of the modern Arctic fox. Globally, the Pliocene was about 2-3 °C warmer than today, and the Arctic during the summer in the mid-Pliocene was 8 °C warmer. By using stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of fossils, researchers claim that the Tibetan Plateau experienced tundra-like conditions during the Pliocene and harbored cold-adapted mammals that later spread to North America and Eurasia during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million-11,700 years ago). Besides the nominate


title: "Arctic fox" content: subspecies, the common Arctic fox, "V. l. lagopus", four other subspecies of this fox have been described: The Arctic fox has a circumpolar distribution and occurs in Arctic tundra habitats in northern Europe, northern Asia, and North America. Its range includes Greenland, Iceland, Fennoscandia, Svalbard, Jan Mayen (where it was hunted to extinction) and other islands in the Barents Sea, northern Russia, islands in the Bering Sea, Alaska, and Canada as far south as Hudson Bay. In the late 19th century, it was introduced into the Aleutian Islands southwest of Alaska. However, the population on the Aleutian Islands is currently


title: "Arctic fox" content: being eradicated in conservation efforts to preserve the local bird population. It mostly inhabits tundra and pack ice, but is also present in Canadian boreal forests (northeastern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, Northern Ontario, Northern Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador) and the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. They are found at elevations up to above sea level and have been seen on sea ice close to the North Pole. The Arctic fox is the only land mammal native to Iceland. It came to the isolated North Atlantic island at the end of the last ice age, walking over the frozen sea.


title: "Arctic fox" content: The Arctic Fox Center in Súðavík contains an exhibition on the Arctic fox and conducts studies on the influence of tourism on the population. Its range during the last ice age was much more extensive than it is now, and fossil remains of the Arctic fox have been found over much of northern Europe and Siberia. The color of the fox's coat also determines where they are most likely to be found. The white morph mainly lives inland and blends in with the snowy tundra, while the blue morph occupies the coasts because its dark color blends in with the


title: "Arctic fox" content: cliffs and rocks. During the winter, 95.5% of Arctic foxes utilize commuting trips, which remain within the fox's home range. Commuting trips in Arctic foxes last less than 3 days and occur between 0-2.9 times a month. Nomadism is found in 3.4% of the foxes, and loop migrations (where the fox travels to a new range, then returns to its home range) are the least common at 1.1%. Arctic foxes in Canada that undergo nomadism and migrations voyage from the Canadian archipelago to Greenland and northwestern Canada. The duration and distance traveled between males and females is not significantly different.


title: "Arctic fox" content: Arctic foxes closer to goose colonies (located at the coasts) are less likely to migrate. Meanwhile, foxes experiencing low-density lemming populations are more likely to make sea ice trips. Residency is common in the Arctic fox population so that they can maintain their territories. Migratory foxes have a mortality rate >3 times higher than resident foxes. Nomadic behavior becomes more common as the foxes age. The conservation status of the species is in general good and several hundred thousand individuals are estimated to remain in total. The IUCN has assessed it as being of "least concern". However, the Scandinavian mainland


title: "Arctic fox" content: population is acutely endangered, despite being legally protected from hunting and persecution for several decades. The estimate of the adult population in all of Norway, Sweden, and Finland is fewer than 200 individuals. As a result, the populations of arctic fox have been carefully studied and inventoried in places such as the Vindelfjällens Nature Reserve (Sweden), which has the arctic fox as its symbol. The abundance of the Arctic fox tends to fluctuate in a cycle along with the population of lemmings and voles (a 3- to 4-year cycle). The populations are especially vulnerable during the years when the prey


title: "Arctic fox" content: population crashes, and uncontrolled trapping has almost eradicated two subpopulations. The pelts of Arctic foxes with a slate-blue coloration were especially valuable. They were transported to various previously fox-free Aleutian Islands during the 1920s. The program was successful in terms of increasing the population of blue foxes, but their predation of Aleutian Canada geese conflicted with the goal of preserving that species. The Arctic fox is losing ground to the larger red fox. This has been attributed to climate change—the camouflage value of its lighter coat decreases with less snow cover. Red foxes dominate where their ranges begin to overlap


title: "Arctic fox" content: by killing Arctic foxes and their kits. An alternative explanation of the red fox's gains involves the gray wolf. Historically, it has kept red fox numbers down, but as the wolf has been hunted to near extinction in much of its former range, the red fox population has grown larger, and it has taken over the niche of top predator. In areas of northern Europe, programs are in place that allow the hunting of red foxes in the Arctic fox's previous range. As with many other game species, the best sources of historical and large-scale population data are hunting bag


title: "Arctic fox" content: records and questionnaires. Several potential sources of error occur in such data collections. In addition, numbers vary widely between years due to the large population fluctuations. However, the total population of the Arctic fox must be in the order of several hundred thousand animals. The world population of Arctic foxes is thus not endangered, but two Arctic fox subpopulations are. One is on Medny Island (Commander Islands, Russia), which was reduced by some 85–90%, to around 90 animals, as a result of mange caused by an ear tick introduced by dogs in the 1970s. The population is currently under treatment


title: "Arctic fox" content: with antiparasitic drugs, but the result is still uncertain. The other threatened population is the one in Fennoscandia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Kola Peninsula). This population decreased drastically around the start of the 20th century as a result of extreme fur prices, which caused severe hunting also during population lows. The population has remained at a low density for more than 90 years, with additional reductions during the last decade. The total population estimate for 1997 is around 60 adults in Sweden, 11 adults in Finland, and 50 in Norway. From Kola, there are indications of a similar situation, suggesting


title: "Arctic fox" content: a population of around 20 adults. The Fennoscandian population thus numbers around 140 breeding adults. Even after local lemming peaks, the Arctic fox population tends to collapse back to levels dangerously close to nonviability. The Arctic fox is classed as a "prohibited new organism" under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, preventing it from being imported into the country. Arctic fox The Arctic fox ("Vulpes lagopus"), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Arctic tundra biome.


title: Apicomplexa content: Apicomplexa The Apicomplexa (also called Apicomplexia) are a large phylum of parasitic alveolates. Most of them possess a unique form of organelle that comprises a type of plastid called an apicoplast, and an apical complex structure. The organelle is an adaptation that the apicomplexan applies in penetration of a host cell. The Apicomplexa are unicellular and spore-forming. All species are obligate endoparasites of animals, except "Nephromyces", a symbiont in marine animals, originally classified as a chytrid fungus. Motile structures such as flagella or pseudopods are present only in certain gamete stages. The Apicomplexa are a diverse group that includes organisms


title: Apicomplexa content: such as the coccidia, gregarines, piroplasms, haemogregarines, and plasmodia. Diseases caused by Apicomplexa include: The name of the taxon Apicomplexa derives from two Latin words—"apex" (top) and "complexus" (infolds)—and refers to a set of organelles in the sporozoite. The Apicomplexa comprise the bulk of what used to be called the Sporozoa, a group of parasitic protozoans, in general without flagella, cilia, or pseudopods. Most of the Apicomplexa are motile, however, by use of a gliding mechanism that uses adhesions and small static myosin motors. The other main lines were the Ascetosporea (now in Rhizaria), the Myxozoa (now known to be


title: Apicomplexa content: highly derived cnidarian animals), and the Microsporidia (now known to be derived from fungi). Sometimes, the name Sporozoa is taken as a synonym for the Apicomplexa, or occasionally as a subset. All members of this phylum have an infectious stage—the sporozoite—which possesses three distinct structures in an apical complex. The apical complex consists of a set of spirally arranged microtubules (the conoid), a secretory body (the rhoptry) and one or more polar rings. Additional slender electron-dense secretory bodies (micronemes) surrounded by one or two polar rings may also be present. This structure gives the phylum its name. A further group


title: Apicomplexa content: of spherical organelles is distributed throughout the cell rather than being localized at the apical complex and are known as the dense granules. These typically have a mean diameter around 0.7 μm. Secretion of the dense-granule content takes place after parasite invasion and localization within the parasitophorous vacuole and persists for several minutes. Other morphological findings common to all members of this phylum include: Replication: Mobility: Apicomplexans have a unique gliding capability which enables them to cross through tissues and enter and leave their host cells. This gliding ability is made possible by the use of adhesions and small static


title: Apicomplexa content: myosin motors. Other features common to this phylum are a lack of cilia, sexual reproduction, use of micropores for feeding, and the production of oocysts containing sporozoites as the infective form. Most apicomplexans have an apicoplast, (a nonphotosynthetic plastid) and mitochondrial and nuclear genomes, although "Cryptosporidium" species and gregarines are possible exceptions, as they are thought to have lost their plastids after the diverging last common ancestor of apicomplexans. Within this phylum are three groups—coccidians, gregarines, and haemosporidians. The coccidians and gregarines appear to be relatively closely related. "Perkinsus ", while once considered a member of the Apicomplexa, has been


title: Apicomplexa content: moved to a new phylum —Perkinsozoa. The gregarines are generally parasites of annelids, arthropods, and mollusks. They are often found in the guts of their hosts, but may invade the other tissues. In the typical gregarine lifecycle, a trophozoite develops within a host cell into a schizont. This then divides into a number of merozoites by schizogony. The merozoites are released by lysing the host cell, which in turn invade other cells. At some point in the apicomplexan lifecycle, gametocytes are formed. These are released by lysis of the host cells, which group together. Each gametocyte forms multiple gametes. The


title: Apicomplexa content: gametes fuse with another to form oocysts. The oocysts leave the host to be taken up by a new host. In general, coccidians are parasites of vertebrates. Like gregarines, they are commonly parasites of the epithelial cells of the gut, but may infect other tissues. The coccidian lifecycle involves merogony, gametogony, and sporogony. While similar to that of the gregarines it differs in zygote formation. Some trophozoites enlarge and become macrogamete, whereas others divide repeatedly to form microgametes (anisogamy). The microgametes are motile and must reach the macrogamete to fertilize it. The fertilized macrogamete forms a zygote that in its


title: Apicomplexa content: turn forms an oocyst that is normally released from the body. Syzygy, when it occurs, involves markedly anisogamous gametes. The lifecycle is typically haploid, with the only diploid stage occurring in the zygote, which is normally short-lived. The main difference between the coccidians and the gregarines is in the gamonts. In the coccidia, these are small, intracellular, and without epimerites or mucrons. In the gregarines, these are large, extracellular, and possess epimerites or mucrons. A second difference between the coccidia and the gregarines also lies in the gamonts. In the coccidians, a single gamont becomes a macrogametocyte, whereas in the


title: Apicomplexa content: gregarines, the gamonts give rise to multiple gametocytes. The Haemosporidia have more complex lifecycles that alternate between an arthropod and a vertebrate host. The trophozoite parasitises erythrocytes or other tissues in the vertebrate host. Microgametes and macrogametes are always found in the blood. The gametes are taken up by the insect vector during a blood meal. The microgametes migrate within the gut of the insect vector and fuse with the macrogametes. The fertilized macrogamete now becomes an ookinete, which penetrates the body of the vector. The ookinete then transforms into an oocyst and divides initially by meiosis and then by


title: Apicomplexa content: mitosis (haplontic lifecycle) to give rise to the sporozoites. The sporozoites escape from the oocyst and migrate within the body of the vector to the salivary glands where they are injected into the new vertebrate host when the insect vector feeds again. Most members have a complex lifecycle, involving both asexual and sexual reproduction. Typically, a host is infected via an active invasion by the parasites (similar to entosis), which divide to produce sporozoites that enter its cells. Eventually, the cells burst, releasing merozoites, which infect new cells. This may occur several times, until gamonts are produced, forming gametes that


title: Apicomplexa content: fuse to create new cysts. Many variations occur on this basic pattern, however, and many Apicomplexa have more than one host. The apical complex includes vesicles called rhoptries and micronemes, which open at the anterior of the cell. These secrete enzymes that allow the parasite to enter other cells. The tip is surrounded by a band of microtubules, called the polar ring, and among the Conoidasida is also a funnel of tubulin proteins called the conoid. Over the rest of the cell, except for a diminished mouth called the micropore, the membrane is supported by vesicles called alveoli, forming a


title: Apicomplexa content: semirigid pellicle. The presence of alveoli and other traits place the Apicomplexa among a group called the alveolates. Several related flagellates, such as "Perkinsus" and "Colpodella", have structures similar to the polar ring and were formerly included here, but most appear to be closer relatives of the dinoflagellates. They are probably similar to the common ancestor of the two groups. Another similarity is that many apicomplexan cells contain a single plastid, called the apicoplast, surrounded by either three or four membranes. Its functions are thought to include tasks such as lipid and heme biosynthesis, and it appears to be necessary


title: Apicomplexa content: for survival. In general, plastids are considered to have a common origin with the chloroplasts of dinoflagellates, and evidence points to an origin from red algae rather than green. Many of the apicomplexan parasites are important pathogens of human and domestic animals. In contrast to bacterial pathogens, these apicomplexan parasites are eukaryotic and share many metabolic pathways with their animal hosts. This makes therapeutic target development extremely difficult – a drug that harms an apicomplexan parasite is also likely to harm its human host. At present, no effective vaccines are available for most diseases caused by these parasites. Biomedical research


title: Apicomplexa content: on these parasites is challenging because it is often difficult, if not impossible, to maintain live parasite cultures in the laboratory and to genetically manipulate these organisms. In recent years, several of the apicomplexan species have been selected for genome sequencing. The availability of genome sequences provides a new opportunity for scientists to learn more about the evolution and biochemical capacity of these parasites. The predominant source of this genomic information is the EuPathDB family of websites, which currently provides specialised services for "Plasmodium" species (PlasmoDB), coccidians (ToxoDB), piroplasms (PiroplasmaDB), and "Cryptosporidium" species (CryptoDB). One possible target for drugs is


title: Apicomplexa content: the plastid, and in fact existing drugs such as tetracyclines, which are effective against apicomplexans, seem to operate against the plastid. Within the Apicomplexa are three suborders of parasites: Within the Adelorina are species that infect invertebrates and others that infect vertebrates. The Eimeriorina—the largest suborder in this phylum—the lifecycle involves both sexual and asexual stages. The asexual stages reproduce by schizogony. The male gametocyte produces a large number of gametes and the zygote gives rise to an oocyst, which is the infective stage. The majority are monoxenous (infect one host only), but a few are heteroxenous (lifecycle involves two


title: Apicomplexa content: or more hosts). The number of families in this later suborder is debated, with the number of families being between one and 20 depending on the authority and the number of genera being between 19 and 25. All members of this phylum are parasitic and evolved from a free-living ancestor. This lifestyle is presumed to have evolved at the time of the divergence of dinoflagellates and apicomplexans. Further evolution of this phylum has been estimated to have occurred about . The oldest extant clade is thought to be the archigregarines. Many Coccidiomorpha have an intermediate host, as well as a


title: Apicomplexa content: primary host, and the evolution of hosts proceeded in different ways and at different times in these groups. For some coccidiomorphs, the original host has become the intermediate host, whereas in others it has become the definitive host. In the genera "Aggregata", "Atoxoplasma", "Cystoisospora", "Schellackia", and "Toxoplasma", the original is now definitive, whereas in "Akiba", "Babesiosoma", "Babesia", "Haemogregarina", "Haemoproteus", "Hepatozoon", "Karyolysus", "Leucocytozoon", "Plasmodium", "Sarcocystis", and "Theileria", the original hosts are now intermediate. Similar strategies to increase the likelihood of transmission have evolved in multiple genera. Polyenergid oocysts and tissue cysts are found in representatives of the orders Protococcidiorida and Eimeriida.


title: Apicomplexa content: Hypnozoites are found in "Karyolysus lacerate" and most species of "Plasmodium"; transovarial transmission of parasites occurs in lifecycles of "Karyolysus" and "Babesia". Horizontal gene transfer appears to have occurred early on in this phylum's evolution with the transfer of a histone H4 lysine 20 (H4K20) modifier, KMT5A (Set8), from an animal host to the ancestor of apicomplexans. A second gene—H3K36 methyltransferase (Ashr3 in plants)—may have also be horizontally transferred. This has rarely been studied at the subclass level. The Haemosporidia are related to the gregarines and the piroplasms and coccidians are sister groups. The Haemosporidia and the Piroplasma appear to


title: Apicomplexa content: be sister clades and are more closely related to the coccidians than to the gregarines. Transposons appear to be rare in this phylum, but have been identified in the genera "Ascogregarina" and "Eimeria". The first Apicomplexa protozoan was seen by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who in 1674 saw probably oocysts of "Eimeria stiedae" in the gall bladder of a rabbit. The first species of the phylum to be described, "Gregarina ovata" in earwigs intestines, was named by Dufour in 1828. He thought that they were a peculiar group related to the trematodes, at that time included in Vermes. Since then, many


title: Apicomplexa content: more have been identified and named. During 1826–1850, 41 species and six genera of Apicomplexa were named. In 1951–1975, 1873 new species and 83 new genera were added. The older taxon Sporozoa, included in Protozoa, was created by Leuckart in 1879 and adopted by Bütschli in 1880. Through history, it grouped with the current Apicomplexa many unrelated groups. For example, Kudo (1954) included in the Sporozoa species of the Ascetosporea (Rhizaria), Microsporidia (Fungi), Myxozoa (Animalia), and "Helicosporidium" (Chlorophyta), while Zierdt (1978) included the genus "Blastocystis" (Stramenopiles). "Dermocystidium" was also thought to be sporozoan. Not all of these groups had spores,


title: Apicomplexa content: but all were parasitic. However, other parasitic or symbiotic unicellular organisms were included too in protozoan groups outside Sporozoa (Flagellata, Ciliophora and Sarcodina), if they had flagella (e.g., many Kinetoplastida, Retortamonadida, Diplomonadida, Trichomonadida, Hypermastigida), cilia (e.g., "Balantidium") or pseudopods (e.g., "Entamoeba, Acanthamoeba, Naegleria"). If they had cell walls, they also could be included in plant kingdom between bacteria or yeasts. Sporozoa is no longer regarded as biologically valid and its use is discouraged, although some authors still use it as a synonym for the Apicomplexa. More recently, other groups were excluded from Apicomplexa, e.g., "Perkinsus" and "Colpodella" (now in Protalveolata).


title: Apicomplexa content: The field of classifying Apicomplexa is in flux and classification has changed throughout the years since it was formally named in 1970. By 1987, a comprehensive survey of the phylum was completed: in all, 4516 species and 339 genera had been named. They consisted of: Although considerable revision of this phylum has been done (the order Haemosporidia now has 17 genera rather than 9), these numbers are probably still approximately correct. Jacques Euzéby in 1988 created a new class Haemosporidiasina by merging subclass Piroplasmasina and suborder Haemospororina. The division into Achromatorida and Chromatorida, although proposed on morphological grounds, may have


title: Apicomplexa content: a biological basis, as the ability to store haemozoin appears to have evolved only once. Roberts and Janovy in 1996 divided the phylum into the following subclasses and suborders (omitting classes and orders): These form the following five taxonomic groups: This scheme is taken from Perkins et al. It is outdated as the Perkinsidae have since been recognised as a sister group to the dinoflagellates rather that the Apicomplexia. The remainder of the scheme appears to be valid: The name Protospiromonadida has been proposed for the common ancestor of the Gregarinomorpha and Coccidiomorpha. Apicomplexa The Apicomplexa (also called Apicomplexia) are


title: Atari content: HDMI, USB (x4), and SD card – the console was said to support both classic and current games. Also, according to an official company statement of June 22, 2017, the product was to be initially launched via a crowdfunding campaign in order to minimize any financial risk to the parent company. On September 26, 2017, Atari sent out a press release about the new "Atari VCS", which confirmed more details about the console. It will run a Linux operating system, with full access to the underlying OS, but it will have a custom interface designed for the TV. Atari Atari


title: "Antonio Salieri" content: of the inferior for his superior. In 2006, the movie "Copying Beethoven" referred to Salieri in a more positive light. In this movie a young female music student hired by Beethoven to copy out his Ninth Symphony is staying at a monastery. The abbess tries to discourage her from working with the irreverent Beethoven. She notes that she too once had dreams, having come to Vienna to study opera singing with Salieri. The 2008 film "Iron Man" used the Larghetto movement from Salieri's Piano Concerto in C major. The scene where Obadiah Stane, the archrival of Tony Stark, the wealthy


title: "Abiotic stress" content: or boreal forest is at the mercy of whatever abiotic stress factors may come along, while tropical zones are much less susceptible to such stressors. One example of a situation where abiotic stress plays a constructive role in an ecosystem is in natural wildfires. While they can be a human safety hazard, it is productive for these ecosystems to burn out every once in a while so that new organisms can begin to grow and thrive. Even though it is healthy for an ecosystem, a wildfire can still be considered an abiotic stressor, because it puts an obvious stress on


title: "Abiotic stress" content: cross-pollination or mutualistic actions, become more common to cope with the severity of their habitat. Plants also adapt very differently from one another, even from a plant living in the same area. When a group of different plant species was prompted by a variety of different stress signals, such as drought or cold, each plant responded uniquely. Hardly any of the responses were similar, even though the plants had become accustomed to exactly the same home environment. Rice ("Oryza sativa") is a classic example. Rice is a staple food throughout the world, especially in China and India. Rice plants experience


title: Aedui content: divided into cantons, and each canton was further divided into communes. The Aedui, like other powerful tribes in the region (the Arverni, the Sequani, and the Helvetii), had replaced their monarchy with a council of magistrates called grand-judges. The grand-judges were under the authority of the senate. The senate was made up of the descendants of ancient royal families. Free men in the tribes were vassals to the heads of these families in exchange for military, financial and political interests. According to Livy (v. 34), they took part in the expedition of Bellovesus into Italy in the 6th century BC.


title: "Ajanta Caves" content: in the Ajanta paintings, which must have been imported from Afghanistan or Iran. It also suggests, states Branacaccio, that the Buddhist monastic world was closely connected with trading guilds and the court culture in this period. A small number of scenes show foreigners drinking wine in Caves 1 and 2. Some show foreign Near East kings with wine and their retinue which presumably add to the "general regal emphasis" of the cave. According to Brancaccio, the Ajanta paintings show a variety of colorful, delicate textiles and women making cotton. Textile probably was one of the major exports to foreign lands,


title: Alicante content: waterfront in the evenings, and a venue for outdoor musical concerts. At the end of the promenade is a monument by the artist Bañuls of the 19th century. "Barrio de la Santa Cruz" is a colourful quarter of the old city, situated on the south-west of Santa Bárbara castle. Its small houses climb up the hill leading to the walls and the castle, through narrow streets decorated with flags and tubs of flowers. "L'Ereta Park" is situated on the foothills of Mount Benacantil, on the way to the castle. It runs from the Santa Bárbara castle down to the old


title: "Ann Widdecombe" content: the sort of humour most men grow out of in their teens... [T]here's no amount of money for which I would go through those two recording hours again. At one stage I nearly walked out." She did, however, stand by her appraisal of regular panellists Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, whom she has called "the fastest wits in showbusiness". Merton later revealed that he thought Widdecombe had been "the worst ever presenter" of the show, particularly on her second appearance where Merton claimed she "thought she was Victoria Wood". In 2007 she awarded the "University Challenge" trophy to the winners.


title: Anthem content: some other all-island bodies. An International Anthem also unifies a group of organizations sharing the same appellation such as the International Anthem of the Royal Golf Clubs composed by Steve Barakatt. Various artists have created "Earth Anthems" for the entire planet, typically extolling the ideas of planetary consciousness. Though UNESCO have praised the idea of a global anthem, the UN has never adopted an official song. Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also


title: "Abacá" content: plants can be started by seeds. Growers harvest abacá fields every three to eight months after an initial growth period of 12–25 months. Harvesting is done by removing the leaf-stems after flowering but before fruit appears. The plant loses productivity between 15 and 40 years. The slopes of volcanoes provide a preferred growing environment. Harvesting generally includes several operations involving the leaf sheaths: When the processing is complete, the bundles of fiber are pale and lustrous with a length of . In Costa Rica, more modern harvest and drying techniques are being developed to accommodate the very high yields obtained


title: Aurochs content: Aurochs The aurochs ( or ; pl. aurochs, or rarely aurochsen, aurochses), also known as urus or ure ("Bos primigenius"), is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle; it has also been suggested as an ancestor genetically to the modern European bison, which have been crossbred with steppe bison. The species survived in Europe until 1627, when the last recorded aurochs died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland. During the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred during the early Holocene, at least two aurochs domestication events occurred: one related


title: Aurochs content: to the Indian subspecies, leading to zebu cattle, and the other one related to the Eurasian subspecies, leading to taurine cattle. Other species of wild bovines were also domesticated, namely the wild water buffalo, gaur, wild yak and banteng. In modern cattle, numerous breeds share characteristics of the aurochs, such as a dark colour in the bulls with a light eel stripe along the back (the cows being lighter), or a typical aurochs-like horn shape. The aurochs was variously classified as "Bos primigenius", "Bos taurus", or, in old sources, "Bos urus". However, in 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature


title: Aurochs content: "conserved the usage of 17 specific names based on wild species, which are predated by or contemporary with those based on domestic forms", confirming "Bos primigenius" for the aurochs. Taxonomists who consider domesticated cattle a subspecies of the wild aurochs should use "B. primigenius taurus"; those who consider domesticated cattle to be a separate species may use the name "B. taurus", which the Commission has kept available for that purpose. The words aurochs, urus, and wisent have all been used synonymously in English. But the extinct aurochs/urus is a completely separate species from the still-extant wisent, also known as European


title: Aurochs content: bison. The two were often confused, and some 16th-century illustrations of aurochs and wisents have hybrid features. The word "urus" (; plural "uri") is a Latin word, but was borrowed into Latin from Germanic (cf. Old English/Old High German "ūr", Old Norse "úr"). In German, OHG "ūr" was compounded with "ohso" "ox", giving "ūrohso", which became early modern "Aurochs". The modern form is "Auerochse". The word "aurochs" was borrowed from early modern German, replacing archaic "urochs", also from an earlier form of German. The word is invariable in number in English, though sometimes a back-formed singular "auroch" and/or innovated plural


title: Aurochs content: "aurochses" occur. The use in English of the plural form "" is nonstandard, but mentioned in "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language". It is directly parallel to the German plural "Ochsen" (singular "Ochse") and recreates by analogy the same distinction as English "ox" (singular) and "oxen" (plural). During the Pliocene, the colder climate caused an extension of open grassland, which led to the evolution of large grazers, such as wild bovines. "Bos acutifrons" is an extinct species of cattle that has been suggested as an ancestor for the aurochs. The oldest aurochs remains have been dated to about 2


title: Aurochs content: million years ago, in India. The Indian subspecies was the first to appear. During the Pleistocene, the species migrated west into the Middle East (western Asia), as well as to the east. They reached Europe about 270,000 years ago. The South Asian domestic cattle, or zebu, descended from Indian aurochs at the edge of the Thar Desert; the zebu is resistant to drought. Domestic yak, gayal, and Bali cattle do not descend from aurochs. The first complete mitochondrial genome (16,338 base pairs) DNA sequence analysis of "Bos primigenius" from an archaeologically verified and exceptionally well preserved aurochs bone sample was


title: Aurochs content: published in 2010,<ref name="Edwards 2010" /, followed by the publication in 2015 of the complete genome sequence of "Bos primigenius" using DNA isolated from a 6,750-year-old British aurochs bone. Further studies using the "Bos primigenius" whole genome sequence have identified candidate microRNA-regulated domestication genes Three wild subspecies of aurochs are recognised. Only the Eurasian subspecies survived until recent times. The appearance of the aurochs has been reconstructed from skeletal material, historical descriptions, and contemporaneous depictions, such as cave paintings, engravings, or Sigismund von Herberstein’s illustration. The work by Charles Hamilton Smith is a copy of a painting owned by a


title: Aurochs content: merchant in Augsburg, which may date to the 16th century. Scholars have proposed that Smith's illustration was based on a cattle/aurochs hybrid, or an aurochs-like breed. The aurochs was depicted in prehistoric cave paintings and described in Julius Caesar's "The Gallic War, Book 6, Ch. 28". The aurochs were one of the largest herbivores in postglacial Europe, comparable to the wisent (European bison). The size of an aurochs appears to have varied by region; in Europe, northern populations were bigger on average than those from the south. For example, during the Holocene, aurochs from Denmark and Germany had an average


title: Aurochs content: height at the shoulders of in bulls and in cows, while aurochs populations in Hungary had bulls reaching . The body mass of aurochs appears to have shown some variability. Some individuals were comparable in weight to the wisent and the banteng, reaching around , whereas those from the late-middle Pleistocene are estimated to have weighed up to , as much as the largest gaur (the largest extant bovid). The sexual dimorphism between bulls and cows was strongly expressed, with the cows being significantly shorter than bulls on average. Because of the massive horns, the frontal bones of aurochs were


title: Aurochs content: elongated and broad. The horns of the aurochs were characteristic in size, curvature, and orientation. They were curved in three directions: upwards and outwards at the base, then swinging forwards and inwards, then inwards and upwards. Aurochs horns could reach in length and between in diameter. The horns of bulls were larger, with the curvature more strongly expressed than in cows. The horns grew from the skull at a 60° angle to the muzzle, facing forwards. The proportions and body shape of the aurochs were strikingly different from many modern cattle breeds. For example, the legs were considerably longer and


title: Aurochs content: more slender, resulting in a shoulder height that nearly equalled the trunk length. The skull, carrying the large horns, was substantially larger and more elongated than in most cattle breeds. As in other wild bovines, the body shape of the aurochs was athletic, and especially in bulls, showed a strongly expressed neck and shoulder musculature. Therefore, the fore hand was larger than the rear, similar to the wisent, but unlike many domesticated cattle. Even in carrying cows, the udder was small and hardly visible from the side; this feature is equal to that of other wild bovines. The coat colour


title: Aurochs content: of the aurochs can be reconstructed by using historical and contemporary depictions. In his letter to Conrad Gesner (1602), Anton Schneeberger describes the aurochs, a description that agrees with cave paintings in Lascaux and Chauvet. Calves were born a chestnut colour. Young bulls changed their coat colour at a few months old to a very deep brown or black, with a white eel stripe running down the spine. Cows retained the reddish-brown colour. Both sexes had a light-coloured muzzle. Some North African engravings show aurochs with a light-coloured "saddle" on the back, but otherwise no evidence of variation in coat


title: Aurochs content: colour is seen throughout its range. A passage from Mucante (1596), describing the “wild ox” as gray, but is ambiguous and may refer to the wisent. Egyptian grave paintings show cattle with a reddish-brown coat colour in both sexes, with a light saddle, but the horn shape of these suggest that they may depict domesticated cattle. Remains of aurochs hair were not known until the early 1980s. Some primitive cattle breeds display similar coat colours to the aurochs, including the black colour in bulls with a light eel stripe, a pale mouth, and similar sexual dimorphism in colour. A feature


title: Aurochs content: often attributed to the aurochs is blond forehead hairs. Historical descriptions tell that the aurochs had long and curly forehead hair, but none mentions a certain colour for it. Cis van Vuure (2005) says that, although the colour is present in a variety of primitive cattle breeds, it is probably a discolouration that appeared after domestication. The gene responsible for this feature has not yet been identified. Zebu breeds show lightly coloured inner sides of the legs and belly, caused by the so-called zebu-tipping gene. It has not been tested if this gene is present in remains of the wild


title: Aurochs content: form of the zebu, the Indian aurochs. Like many bovids, aurochs formed herds for at least a part of the year. These probably did not number much more than 30. If aurochs had social behaviour similar to their descendants, social status was gained through displays and fights, in which cows engaged as well as bulls. Indeed, aurochs bulls were reported to often have had severe fights. As in other wild cattle, ungulates that form unisexual herds, considerable sexual dimorphism was expressed. Ungulates that form herds containing animals of both sexes, such as horses, have more weakly developed sexual dimorphism. During


title: Aurochs content: the mating season, which probably took place during the late summer or early autumn, the bulls had severe fights, and evidence from the forest of Jaktorów shows these could lead to death. In autumn, aurochs fed up for the winter and got fatter and shinier than during the rest of the year, according to Schneeberger. Calves were born in spring. According to Schneeberger, the calf stayed at the cow's side until it was strong enough to join and keep up with the herd on the feeding grounds. Calves were vulnerable to wolves and, to an extent, bears, while healthy adult


title: Aurochs content: aurochs probably did not have to fear these predators. In prehistoric Europe, North Africa, and Asia, big cats, such as lions and tigers, and hyenas were additional predators that probably preyed on aurochs. Historical descriptions, like Caesar’s "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" or Schneeberger, tell that aurochs were swift and fast, and could be very aggressive. According to Schneeberger, aurochs were not concerned when a man approached, but when teased or hunted, an aurochs could get very aggressive and dangerous, and throw the teasing person into the air, as he described in a 1602 letter to Gesner. No consensus exists concerning


title: Aurochs content: the habitat of the aurochs. While some authors think that the habitat selection of the aurochs was comparable to the African forest buffalo, others describe the species as inhabiting open grassland and helping maintain open areas by grazing, together with other large herbivores. With its hypsodont jaw, the aurochs was probably a grazer and had a food selection very similar to domesticated cattle. It was not a browser like many deer species, nor a semi-intermediary feeder like the wisent. Comparisons of the isotope levels of Mesolithic aurochs and domestic cattle bones showed that aurochs probably inhabited wetter areas than domestic


title: Aurochs content: cattle. Schneeberger describes that during winter, the aurochs ate twigs and acorns in addition to grasses. After the beginning of the Common Era, the habitat of aurochs became more fragmented because of the steadily growing human population. During the last centuries of its existence, the aurochs was limited to remote regions, such as floodplain forests or marshes, with no competing domestic herbivores and less hunting pressure. The aurochs, which ranged throughout much of Eurasia and Northern Africa during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, is the wild ancestor of modern cattle. Archaeological evidence shows that domestication occurred independently in the


title: Aurochs content: Near East and the Indian subcontinent between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, giving rise to the two major domestic taxa observed today: humpless "Bos taurus" (taurine) and humped "Bos indicus" (zebu), respectively. This is confirmed by genetic analyses of matrilineal mitochondrial DNA sequences, which reveal a marked differentiation between modern "B. taurus" and "B. indicus" haplotypes, demonstrating their derivation from two geographically and genetically divergent wild populations. A third domestication event possibly occurred from another form of the aurochs in Africa. The sanga cattle, a zebu-like cattle with no back hump, is commonly believed to originate from crosses between humped


title: Aurochs content: zebus with taurine cattle breeds. However, some archaeological evidence indicates these cattle were domesticated independently in Africa and that bloodlines of taurine and zebu cattle were introduced only within the last few hundreds years. Domestication of the aurochs began in the southern Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia from about the sixth millennium BC. Genetic evidence suggests that aurochs were independently domesticated in India and possibly also in northern Africa. Domesticated cattle and aurochs are so different in size that they have been regarded as separate species; however, large ancient cattle and aurochs have more similar morphological characteristics, with significant differences only


title: Aurochs content: in the horns and some parts of the cranium. A mitochondrial DNA study suggests that all domesticated taurine cattle originated from about 80 wild female aurochs in the Near East. Comparison of aurochs bones with those of modern cattle has provided many insights about the aurochs. Remains of the beast, from specimens believed to have weighed more than a ton, have been found in Mesolithic sites around Goldcliff, Wales. Though aurochs became extinct in Britain during the Bronze Age, analysis of bones from aurochs that lived about the same time as domesticated cattle traditionally suggested no genetic contribution to modern


title: Aurochs content: breeds. More recent work has pointed to substantial aurochs contributions to indigenous British cattle breeds, with the most material found in Kerry cattle. Indian zebu, although domesticated eight to ten thousand years ago, are related to aurochs that diverged from the Near Eastern ones some 200,000 years ago. African cattle are thought to have descended from aurochs more closely related to the Near Eastern ones. The Near East and African aurochs groups are thought to have split some 25,000 years ago, probably 15,000 years before domestication. The "Turano-Mongolian" type of cattle now found in northern China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan


title: Aurochs content: may represent a fourth domestication event (and a third event among "B. taurus"–type aurochs). This group may have diverged from the Near East group some 35,000 years ago. Whether these separate genetic populations would have equated to separate subspecies is unclear. The maximum range of the aurochs was from Europe (excluding Ireland and northern Scandinavia), to northern Africa, the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Until at least 3,000 years ago, the aurochs was also found in eastern China, where it is recorded at the Dingjiabao Reservoir in Yangyuan County. Most remains in China are known from the area east


title: Aurochs content: of 105°E, but the species has also been reported from the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau, close to the Heihe River. In Japan, excavations in various locations such as in Iwate and Tochigi prefectures have found aurochs which may have herded with steppe bisons. Already in the times of Herodotus (fifth century BC), aurochs had disappeared from southern Greece, but remained common in the area north and east of Echedorus River close to modern Thessaloniki. Last reports of the species in the southern tip of the Balkans date to the first century BC when Varro reported that fierce wild


title: Aurochs content: oxen live in Dardania (southern Serbia) and Thrace. By the 13th century AD, the aurochs' range was restricted to Poland, Lithuania, Moldavia, Transylvania, and East Prussia. The right to hunt large animals on any land was restricted first to nobles, and then gradually, to only the royal households. As the population of aurochs declined, hunting ceased, and the royal court used gamekeepers to provide open fields for grazing for the aurochs. The gamekeepers were exempted from local taxes in exchange for their service. Poaching aurochs was punishable by death. According to a Polish royal survey in 1564, the gamekeepers knew


title: Aurochs content: of 38 animals. The last recorded live aurochs, a female, died in 1627 in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland, from natural causes. The causes of extinction were unrestricted hunting, a narrowing of habitat due to the development of farming, and diseases transmitted by domesticated cattle. While all the wild subspecies are extinct, "B. primigenius" lives on in domesticated cattle, and attempts are being made to breed similar types suitable for filling the extinct subspecies' role in the wild. The idea of breeding back the aurochs was first proposed in the 19th century by Feliks Paweł Jarocki. In the 1920s, a first


title: Aurochs content: attempt was undertaken by the Heck brothers in Germany with the aim of breeding an effigy (a look-alike) of the aurochs. Starting in the 1990s, grazing and rewilding projects brought new impetus to the idea and new breeding-back efforts came underway, this time with the aim of recreating an animal not only with the looks, but also with the behaviour and the ecological impact of the aurochs, to be able to fill the ecological role of the aurochs. In the early 1920s, two German zoo directors (in Berlin and Munich), the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck, began a selective breeding


title: Aurochs content: program to breed back the aurochs into existence from the descendant domesticated cattle. Their plan was based on the concept that a species is not extinct as long as all its genes are still present in a living population. The result is the breed called Heck cattle. It resembles what is known about the appearance of the aurochs in colour, and in some cases, also horn shape. The "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Biologischer Umweltschutz", a conservation group in Germany, started to crossbreed Heck cattle with southern-European primitive breeds in 1996, with the goal of increasing the aurochs-likeness of certain Heck cattle herds. These


title: Aurochs content: crossbreeds are called Taurus cattle. It is intended to bring in aurochs-like features that are supposedly missing in Heck cattle using Sayaguesa Cattle and Chianina, and to a lesser extent Spanish Fighting Cattle (Lidia). The same breeding program is being carried out in Latvia, in Lille Vildmose National Park in Denmark, and in the Hungarian Hortobágy National Park. The program in Hungary also includes Hungarian Grey cattle and Watusi. The Dutch-based Tauros Programme, (initially TaurOs Project) is trying to DNA-sequence breeds of primitive cattle to find gene sequences that match those found in "ancient DNA" from aurochs samples. The modern


title: Aurochs content: cattle would be selectively bred to try to produce the aurochs-type genes in a single animal. Starting around 2007, Tauros Programme selected a number of primitive breeds mainly from Iberia and Italy, such as Sayaguesa cattle, Maremmana primitivo, Pajuna cattle, Limia cattle, Maronesa cattle, Tudanca cattle, and others, which already bear considerable resemblance to the aurochs in certain features. Tauros Programme started collaborations with Rewilding Europe and European Wildlife, two European organizations for ecological restoration and rewilding, and now has breeding herds not only in the Netherlands but also in Portugal, Croatia, Romania, and the Czech Republic. Numerous crossbred calves


title: Aurochs content: of the first, second, and third offspring generations have already been born. A further back-breeding effort, the Uruz project, was started in 2013 by the True Nature Foundation, an organization for ecological restoration and rewilding. It differs from the other projects in that it is planning to make use of genome editing. Its preliminary plans called for the use of Sayaguesa, Maremmana primitive, or Hungarian Grey (Steppe) cattle, and Texas Longhorn with wildtype colour or Barrosã cattle. The finalised plans now call for setting up two breeding lines, Sayaguesa × Maremmana primitiva/Hungarian Steppe cattle and Watusi × Chianina, and later


title: Aurochs content: crossing these lines. Two Watusi × Chianina breeding herds have been set up in Boxmeer and Breda in the Netherlands, another herd using Barrosã is being set up in northern Portugal. The newest of the back-breeding efforts, the "Auerrindprojekt", was started in 2015 as a conjoint effort of the Experimentalarchäologisches Freilichtlabor Lauresham (Lauresham Experimental-Archaeological Open-air Laboratory, run by Lorsch Abbey), the Förderkreis Große Pflanzenfresser im Kreis Bergstraße e.V. (Promoting Association Megaherbivores in Bergstraße District) and the Landschaftspflegebetrieb Hohmeyer (Landscape Preservation Company Hohmeyer). In accordance with the breeding aims, the Auerrindprojekt has already set up two breeding herds of Watusi ×