536 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



smaller enclosure and fed heavily with oats, and the calves were 

 weaned early. As a result, the cows produced a calf about every 

 year. (Stechow, 1929.) 



Present status. The number of purebred animals (of both sub- 

 species) remaining at the end of 1932 was only 73 (Mohr, 1933, 

 p. 260). These are all contained in various European parks and 

 zoos. Efforts to obtain the best breeding results from this small 

 and scattered stock appear to have been hampered somewhat by 

 international rivalries. 



Caucasian Bison. Kaukasischer Wisent (Ger.). 

 Zubr (Russian) 



BISON BONASUS CAUCASICUS Hilzheimer 



Bison caucasicus Hilzheimer, Mitteil. Nat.-kab. Stuttgart, p. 252, 1909. 



(Caucasus.) 

 FIGS.: Demidoff, 1898, frontisp. and fig., p. 77; Lydekker, 1898c, pi. 5 and fig. 



15, p. 76. 



The Caucasian Bison was believed to have been completely ex- 

 terminated by 1925 (B. K. Fortunatow, Natur- und socialistische 

 Wirtschaft, vol. 5, pp. 172-188, (1932) 1933, as quoted in Zeitschr. /. 

 Saugetierkunde, vol. 9, p. 40, 1934). While a few survivors were 

 reported as late as 1930 (Pfizenmayer), the race is now probably 

 extinct in its native wild. At last accounts, however, certain captive 

 specimens in other parts of Europe were at least partly of Caucasian 

 ancestry. 



"Very similar in external appearance to the typical race/ but 

 perhaps somewhat more lightly built, with less long hair on the 

 fore-quarters. . . . According to Hilzheimer, the skull . . . ap- 

 proximates in many features ... to the American species." (Ly- 

 dekker, 1913c, vol. 1, pp. 36-37.) 



How far this subspecies may have once extended from the 

 Caucasus toward the northwest to meet the range of the Lithuanian 

 Bison, or in other directions, will perhaps never be known. It had 

 apparently become almost or entirely restricted to the Caucasus 

 region by the time scientific records of it began to be kept. Early 

 records are somewhat uncertain by reason of possible confusion 

 between the Bison and the Aurochs (Bos primigenius) . Brandt, 

 however, considers (1867, p. 157) that the records by Lamberti 

 (1654) and by Lowitz and Guldenstadt (end of eighteenth century) 

 probably pertain to the present species in the Caucasus; he also 

 states (p. 158) that an unquestionable skin was brought from the 

 Caucasus to St. Petersburg in 1836. By this time the animal seems 

 to have retired to the inner parts of the Caucasus, including the 

 valleys of the Zellentchuk and the Kuban. Brandt goes on to sug- 



