In the film Beasts of the Southern Wild, the mythical aurochs are enormous boars that inhabit the movie.
Aurochs are (or more accurately, were) neither mythical or pork-like. The wild ancestor of cattle, aurochs were enormous and ferocious versions of today's docile domesticated breeds. Cave paintings in France depict battles with aurochs, and their territory ranged from western Europe to eastern Asia, and into northern Africa.
Through over-hunting, habitat destruction, and diseases from domesticated cattle, the auroch numbers diminished. The last auroch died in 1627 in the forest outside of this Polish village. There is a monument there to commemorate the extinction of this species.
There is currently a scientific collaboration, Project TaurOs, to genetically recreate the auroch species.
