Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

MUSTANGS which are not feral horses.

Someone passed the me on a paper of a study that claims that the wild horses are in fact the same genetically as those that evolved in the North America which calls into question the assumption that the wild horses are all feral. An excerpt below along with the references.

Horses have traditionally been considered non-native, "feral," and exotic in North America. This was based on the argument that E. caballus (or the caballoid horse) was not present on this continent when horses disappeared 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. The horse brought back by the Spanish was thought to be a different species than the species present in North America at extinction. However, the relatively new (27-year-old) field of molecular biology, using mitochondrial DNA analysis, has recently found that the modern horse, E. caballus, is genetically identical to E. lambei, a horse, according to fossil records, that represented the most recent Equus species in North America prior to extinction. Not only is E. caballus genetically equal to E. lambei, but no evidence exists for the origin of E. caballus anywhere except North America.[5]

 According to a paper published by Uppsala University researcher Ann Forstén, of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, the date of origin for E. caballus is set at approximately 1.7 million years ago in North America.  Scientists - galloping along - are leaving the old methods of paleontology and taxonomic classification in the dust. The older taxonomic methodologies looked at physical form for classifying animals and plants, relying on eyeball observations of physical characteristics. While earlier taxonomists tried to deal with the subjectivity of choosing characters they felt would adequately describe, and thus group, genera and species, these observations were lacking in precision. Reclassifications are now taking place based on the power and objectivity of molecular biology. If one considers primate evolution, for example, the molecular biologists have rewritten the rules and have provided us with a completely different evolutionary pathway for humans, and they
 have described entirely different relationships with other primates. None of this would have been possible prior to precise data collection now available through mitochondrial DNA analysis.

[1] Henry Fairfield Osborn, "Origin and History of the Horse," Address presented before The New York Farmers, Metropolitan Club, New York, 19 December 1905, p. 1

[2] "Unbroken Spirit: The Wild Horse in the American Landscape," 2001. Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming http://www.bbhc.org/unbrokenSpirit/evolution_1.cfm 

[3] "Horse Evolution" by Kathleen Hunt from www.onthenet.com.au/~stear/horse_evolution.htm; Bruce J. MacFadden, Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equidae (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 205

[4] Patricia Mabee Fazio, "The Fight to Save a Memory: Creation of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range (1968) and Evolving Federal Wild Horse Protection through 1971," doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station, 1995, p. 21

[5] Ann Forstén, 1992. Mitochondrial-DNA timetable and the evolution of Equus: Comparison of molecular and paleontological evidence. Ann. Zool. Fennici 28: 301-309

[6] Carles Vilà, Jennifer A. Leonard, Anders Götherström, Stefan Marklund, Kaj Sandberg, Kerstin Lidén, Robert K. Wayne, Hans Ellegren. 2001. Widespread origins of domestic horse lineages. Science 291: 474-477

[7] James Dean Feist and Dale R. McCullough. 1976. Behavior patterns and communication in feral horses. Z. Tierpsychol. 41: 367

 

--

 

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
--Benjamin Franklin