Meet Knickers, the giant Australian "cow"

"This story needs a little perspective," said Aniek Bouwman, expert in animal breeding and genomics at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands.

For starters, she said, it's important to note that Knickers is not a cow but a beast, because males are usually a little bigger than females. (Note: only females with at least one calf are referred to as "cows" in cattle circles.) But her breed is also important, said Bouwman.

Male Holsteins tend to reach a little under 180 centimeters in height, while other breeds, such as wagyu cattle that surround Knickers in his now famous photos, usually have a size less than 140 centimeters.

In other words, Knickers is a great specimen, but he looks bigger because he stands among a flock of Danny DeVitos, not a flock of Arnold Schwarzeneggers.

Age is also a factor. Knickers is seven years old, which is rather long for a wheel. The animals with which he was photographed are all about a year old, his owner told the New York Times.

"The oxen are usually doomed to slaughtering before the age of three," said Craig Hickman, a dairy farmer from Ashburton, New Zealand, who added that almost anything He knew he had sent her information about Knickers. "Then at seven, he had time to gain a lot of weight."

In fact, the extreme proportions of Knickers were perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy. After a few years of growth, the animal had become too big to move into a treatment facility, according to its owner, livestock rancher Geoff Pearson.

Apart from age and race, Knickers seems to have something more to do. Which is interesting, said Pearson in an interview, because the parents of the bouveteur were not particularly tall and he was not different at birth.

"It was only a bbad calf turned into a giant," said Pearson, owner of a third-generation breeding farm in Myalup, in Southwestern Ontario. 39, State of Washington.

According to Bouwman, gigantism and dwarfism, or exceptionally large and small individuals, have been documented in various species. She published a meta-badysis study in Nature This year, it suggested that the same genes regulate size in cattle, dogs, and humans, which means that it may be possible for Knickers-like extremes to occur in any mammal under good conditions. .

In terms of whether the genes are responsible for Knickers' size, Mr Bouwman said that a DNA test would be needed to make sure.

It is also possible that the pituitary gland of Knickers, which regulates growth, is in ruins. This has been observed in some specimens of tadpoles that continue to develop as tadpoles and never metamorphose to frogs.

Asked about Knickers, Richard Wbadersug, an honorary professor and herpetologist at the University of British Columbia, who studies the giant among tadpoles, said he would not want to speculate outside his field of practice. ; expertise. But in general, he said, no growth can last forever.

"There are clear limits to the size of any terrestrial organism before its organic systems can no longer meet the collective needs of other organic systems and they begin to fail," he said.

Danniel, another huge Californian Holstein the size of Knickers, died this year of a calcium deficiency. Danniel reportedly consumed 45 kg of hay, nearly 7 kg of grain and 380 liters of water a day. He had lived until eight years old.

Meanwhile, the biggest driving record in the world is held by an Italian beef called Bellino, the chianina. It is a little over two meters high.

Knickers showed no signs of a health problem, but Pearson said he would not be surprised if all that weight eventually caught up with the bar. And while it's fun to talk about his unusual animal to reporters from various countries in recent days, Pearson said, he has more pressing issues.

"Yeah, listen, we're running a reasonable livestock operation," he said. "We like the visibility that Knickers had, but we have a daily operation to pursue."

In other words, do not put your pants in a pile, people. It's just a big steering wheel.