Their meat will not be reaching the Sunday lunch table and nobody would dare get close enough to try to milk them. But a herd of "super cows", descended from animals bred in Nazi Germany, is making an impressive sight on a farm in south-west England.

The animals, Heck cattle, were bred by the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck, two zoologists who wanted to recreate the aurochs. An extinct European wild ox, the aurochs features as an important beast in Teutonic mythology.

Only a few Heck cattle survived after the second world war but now Derek Gow, a farmer and conservation consultant, has shipped 13 bulls and cows from Belgium to the farm in Devon, where they have joined a growing collection of beavers, polecats and water voles.

Rather than allowing his Heck cattle to be hunted, as some of the Nazi leaders wanted to do, Gow will let photographers take pictures of the animals. He also hopes to start his own breeding programme.

He believes Heck cattle - which, he says, "look prehistoric" - could one day have an important conservation role, taking the place of aurochs in the environment. "They would be ideal for a reintroduction programme in Britain because they don't need human attention."

He added: "They are an important part of the ecosystem because each cow produces its own weight in dung a year. That is excellent for the whole food chain, from dung beetles upwards."

Gow said his Hecks were much shorter than the aurochs but had a similar muscular build, deep-brown complexion and shaggy, coffee-coloured fringe.

• This article was amended on Thursday 23 April 2009. The singular of aurochs, an extinct European wild ox, is aurochs, not auroch. This has been corrected.