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Controversially True Statement:
WILD HORSES ARE *EXTINCT*.
It sounds a bit odd, but at present there are many DOMESTICATED horse populations, a number of FERAL populations, but only one proposed extant WILD horse population: the Przewalski's horse, found roaming Mongolia.
WILD HORSES ARE *EXTINCT*.
It sounds a bit odd, but at present there are many DOMESTICATED horse populations, a number of FERAL populations, but only one proposed extant WILD horse population: the Przewalski's horse, found roaming Mongolia.
We'll get to why the Przewalski's horse is likely a feral, but the other subspecies of note is the Tarpan or Eurasian wild horse (Equus ferus ferus), the last individual of which died in 1909 in the Russian Empire.
Work published in Science in 2018 showed a likely taxonomic relationship between existing populations that suggests that the Przewalski's horse is in fact descended from domesticated horses of the Botai culture around 3000 BC. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/111
What this means: the ancestors of modern horses left no populations that have not been manipulated by human breeding at some time.
It's primarily of interest to taxonomists, I would suppose, or those studying selection in horse populations, but wild horses died out in 1909.
It's primarily of interest to taxonomists, I would suppose, or those studying selection in horse populations, but wild horses died out in 1909.
