Tarpan
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The only photo of an alleged tarpan that |
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| Equus ferus ferus | ||||||||||||
| Boddaert , 1784 |
As Tarpan ( Equus ferus ferus ) is extinct in the 17th and 18th century Western form of the Eurasian is wild horse called. It was widespread west of the Urals (especially in the southern Russian steppes ) and disappeared in the course of the 19th century at the latest. Sometimes the species is subdivided again into the variants forest tarpan and steppent tarpan . It is questionable whether the reports on tarpans that have been handed down since 1774 actually describe real wild horses. It can be about feral domestic horses as well as the North American mustangs or at least mixed breeds of domestic and wild horses.
The Tarpan is therefore to be distinguished from the Przewalski horse , which for a long time was regarded as the eastern subspecies of the wild horse and was mistakenly regarded as the (only) surviving wild form of this species . However, a publication in the journal Science in 2018 showed that Przewalski's horses are also feral horses, whose ancestors are the Botai and Borly horses. In the same article, however, it was also proven that neither the Botai horses nor the Przewalski horse are the ancestral form of today's domestic horse, as humans around 3500 BC. First domesticated horses.
Etymology and Taxonomy
The term "tarpan" and what it originally described is controversial. In the meantime, however, it has become the name of the West Eurasian wild horse through zoological literature. It comes from the Tatar vernacular and referred to both wild horses and feral domestic horses and their hybrids as well as wild asses found there. In 1762 the name Tarpan was first used in scientific literature by Peter Rytschkow and today it has become the general term for the western wild horse.
In 1784 the Tarpan was described by Pieter Boddaert in Elenchus Animalium as Equus ferus . Otto Antonius described the species as Equus gmelini in 1912, so this name is a junior synonym . Equus sylvaticus is a name created by Tadeusz Vetulani in 1928 for the populations he called forest tarpan; depending on the accuracy of the forest tarpan hypothesis, this is likely to be another junior synonym. Within the wild horse species, the tarpan, Equus ferus ferus , must be differentiated from the Przewalski horse, Equus ferus przewalskii . Both horse lines separated from one another 120,000 to 240,000 years ago. At the same time, the tarpans, coming from the northeast, spread across Eurasia.
If wild horses and domestic horses are regarded as one species, the latter should be listed as Equus ferus caballus , since according to the ICZN the names of wild forms have priority over house forms.
description
The reconstructed appearance of the tarpan is based on genetic , osteological and historical findings. Genetic studies show that the basic color brown predominated in European and Russian wild horses . During the Mesolithic, wild horses on the Iberian Peninsula also developed a gene for a black coat color . This color spread further to the east, but never reached Siberia and remained in the minority of the wild horse genotypes studied compared to the brown color. Furthermore, the tiger piebald complex was detected in prehistoric wild horses , which is responsible for a black piebald white basic color, as can be found in Knabstruppern and some Norikers . The occurrence of the dilute gene , which causes a lightening of the basic color in yellow horses, has not yet been tested in wild horses. However, it is considered likely that wild horses were fallow, at least in more open habitats, since both the Przewalski horse and many wild asses are all brown in color and the light basic color is advantageous for steppe-like habitats. The basic colors brown and black result in brown fallow and black fallow with fallow. In addition, it is assumed that a possible loss of the fallow would again have been advantageous in the central and western part of Europe, since darker colored horses (in this case phenotypically brown and black) might have been better camouflaged in wooded areas. Light underside of the body (pangare) and flour mouth are characteristics that could also occur in European wild horses, as they are an integral part of the coat color of all other wild equines (with the exception of zebras) and historical reports sometimes mention a light belly side. It is very likely that fallow wild horses also had the so-called “primitive markings”, which in addition to eel lines also include fetlock stripes and shoulder crosses . Cave paintings depicting Pleistocene wild horses in Europe show brown, black, as well as fawn and white-spotted animals.
Wild horses in Europe are described in a number of historical sources. However, these are often imprecise, so that there is uncertainty about the nature of the respective horse populations regarding their status as wild horses or feral domestic horses. It is also unclear whether “mouse color” means mouse gray or mouse brown.
In the fifth century BC, Herodotus described bright wild horses that were found in what is now Ukraine . Albertus Magnus reports in the 12th century AD about wild horses in German territory that were mouse-colored and provided with a dark eel line.
Belsazar Hacquet , a doctor in the Austrian army during the Seven Years' War , described the wild horses in the Zamość zoo as small, black-brown in color, with large and thick heads, with short dark manes and tail hair and a "beard". The wild horses were absolutely indomitable and stubbornly and courageously defended themselves against predators. Also Kajetan Kozmian describes the wild horses of Zamość as a small and very strong, with robust limbs and uniform dark color mouse.
Another important description of wild horses was provided by Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin in 1768, who saw populations in Voronezh . According to him, the wild horses were very small, had pointed ears and a short, curly mane. The tail was also shorter than that of domestic horses. The color was typically mouse-colored, the belly lighter in color, the legs turned black. However, white and gray molds have also been reported. The fur was long and thick. The wild horses were very fast and shy and fled at the slightest noise. The herds were led by a lead stallion. To thank these precise reports, the European wild horse was named by Antonius after Gmelin.
Peter Pallas also provided valuable descriptions of wild horses in southern Russia , which he sighted on a trip in 1768. In his opinion, the horses he saw were not wild horses, but feral domestic horses that escaped during the chaos of war. However, they were important hunting animals for the Tatars and lived in herds of five to 20 animals and showed a wild horse-like body: small stature, thick heads, short curly manes and short tail hair as well as pointed ears. The color has been described as pale brown, here and there dark brown or black. Pallas also reports those with clear signs of mixing, such as light-colored legs or gray mold.
Charles Hamilton Smith reports in The Natural History of Horses, with Memoir of Gesner that tarpans could be found in herds of a few to a hundred animals led by a lead stallion. Often these herds were mixed with domestic horses, and in addition to pure-breeding herds there were also wild domestic horse herds or hybrid herds. The color of the pure tarpans is described as uniformly brown, cream-colored or mouse-colored. The short frizzy mane has been described as black, as has the tail and pasterns. The ears were either long or short and set high on the skull. The eyes were small. The vocalizations of the tarpan were more shrill and louder than those of domestic horses, and in general the wild horse made a mule-like appearance. The Tarpan is said to have undertaken seasonal migrations, according to Hamilton Smith, migrating north during the summer and retreating south again in the fall.
The European wild horse or tarpan was often awarded a standing mane. All surviving wild horse species had a standing mane and so it was thought that hanging manes were a domestication feature. Historical reports, however, never clearly described standing mane for European wild horses, and it is likely that these did have a short, hanging mane. This feature is advantageous in regions with high levels of precipitation, as it keeps rainwater and snow away from the neck and face region and reduces heat loss. Mummified Siberian wild horses also have a hanging mane.
Forest tarpan
Tadeusz Vetulani assumed that the increasing forest cover in Central Europe after the Würm glacial period led to a type of wild horse adapted to forests, which he defined as the "forest tarpan" from the "steppent tarpan". Most historical sources, however, do not testify to any significant differences between the various populations, so that several authors list this as a possible subspecies.
However, it is reported by CH Smith that there was a stocky type of wild horse in Western Europe that inhabited forests and highlands. It was found in Spain , the Pyrenees , the Camargue , the Ardennes , Great Britain and the southern Swedish highlands . The head of these wild horses was beefy and provided with a strong lower jaw. They had a sturdy and strong body, heavy manes with forehead curls, and a long bushy tail. The color was described as pale, yellowish-brown with eel line and fetlock stripes or completely black fetters. The flanks and shoulder area could be mottled and some tended to be ashy. They lived in hilly, rocky habitats and were intelligent and "malicious". In the swamps of the Netherlands there are also said to have been black wild horses with a large skull with small eyes and a bristle snout. The mane was opulent, the toes broad, and thick ankles. This form was common up to the Harz Mountains . Or maybe it just represented a feral horse.
Mixing with domestic horses
It is very likely that not all wild horses described are actual wild horses, but feral domestic horses or hybrids . Among other things, it was described by some Polish authors from the 19th century that the country's wild horses had hoof problems, which led to crippled legs, which is why they assumed that these were feral domestic horses. Other contemporary authors such as Pallas went even further, claiming that all wild horses from the Volga to the Urals are feral domestic horses. Others, like Hamilton Smith, thought this was too speculative and assumed that wild, undomesticated horses would continue to exist in the 19th century.
In Denmark up to the 12th century wild horses are said to have existed in large numbers and were hunted at great expense. In the 15th and early 16th centuries there were reports of wild horses in East Prussian provinces. In the course of the 16th century, wild horses disappeared from large parts of the mainland in Western Europe and became increasingly rare in Eastern Europe, as they were much sought after by the aristocracy. For the semi-wild horses of Great Britain see Exmoor Pony .
From the princely hunting ground of Zamość (south-east Poland) it is reported that the tarp herd living there were distributed to the farmers of the Biłgoraj region in 1806 due to economic difficulties and were absorbed in their domestic horses. Kozmian also writes that the horses had recently been exterminated in the wild in Poland because they damaged hay supplies for livestock.
In fact, after wars, military horses were often released into the wild because they were no longer needed. Wild stallions also often abducted house mares and killed competing house stallions. Not infrequently in the 18th and 19th centuries there were reports of wild horses with different coat colors and herds in which there were clearly domestic mares. Pallas described horses with wild characteristics such as large heads, pointed ears, short, curly mane and tails, but also colors such as gray, mold and light limbs.
Because of this, a large number of authors considered the tarpan of the last two centuries to be a wild mongrel population or even feral domestic horses, others consider this question to be not conclusively clarified. Only a few assume that all animals historically referred to as tarpan are pure, real wild animals.
The only known specimen of the wild Eastern European horses that has been photographically documented is the so-called Cherson Tarpan, which was caught as a foal in the steppe near Novo-Voroncowka in 1866 . He died in the Moscow Zoo in 1887 . The nature of this horse was already controversial back then, as it had almost none of the typical wild horse characteristics. Today it is assumed that it was a wild domestic horse or a hybrid, but not a real wild horse.
Spread and eradication
In prehistoric times, Equus ferus had a continuous distribution area from Western Europe to Alaska , and historical evidence also suggests an occurrence in large parts of the Holocene Europe (with the exception of large parts of Scandinavia , Iceland and Ireland ) and parts of the Eurasian steppe. The man-made extinction of the tarpan began in the areas of origin of urban civilization in southern Europe.
The European wild horse probably survived the longest in the steppes of southern Russia. By 1880 the tarpans, which were probably mostly hybrids, were already very rare in southern Russia. According to this, sightings of dubious authenticity have been handed down. The last captive horse, known as the purebred tarpan, died in 1918.
Reasons for extermination
Humans have been using wild horses as prey since the Paleolithic . Even in historical times, the tarpans served many cultures as an important source of meat. Like many large herbivores, however, the wild horse was an outright refuge from culture , and the increasing civilization of the continent reduced the animal's habitat through settlement and agriculture. They were also persecuted for damaging hay stores and often abducting domestic mares from pastures. Mixing with wild horses was also not appreciated by farmers, as the result was very stubborn offspring.
Domestication
It is believed that the wild horse was domesticated about 6000 years ago. The western Eurasian steppe is regarded as the starting point, and possibly the only place of domestication. However, the Przewalski horse does not seem to have been among the domesticated wild horses. The oldest archaeological findings come from Kazakhstan and the Ukraine, around 6000 to 5500 years BP .
The extremely diverse mitochondrial DNA of the domestic horse with at the same time low diversity on the Y chromosome suggests that significantly fewer stallions than mares were used for the domestication of the horse and that local introgression by wild mares as well as possible local domestication led to the great mitochondrial diversity of the domestic horse. Accordingly, after the spatial expansion of the domestic horse, tarpan populations made genetic contributions to today's domestic horse population.
Tarpan-like breeds
Some domestic horse breeds are said to be purebred descendants of the tarpans or wild horses. These include Koniks , Exmoor ponies and Dülmen horses . However, genetic studies do not assign any of these breeds a special position among domestic horses, but no domestic horses have so far been directly compared genetically with the Tarpan. The horses, incorrectly referred to as Tarpan in many zoos, are mostly breeds of images in which the breeders have "back-bred" the typical wild horse characteristics according to their ideas. The brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck undertook the first attempts of this kind in the 1930s and 40s. The resulting rear horses were often used for further "Tarpan back-breeding" in the following period.
The following horse breeds are ascribed characteristics that make them suitable for a life under wild conditions in Europe. These characteristics include robustness, resemblance to wild horses, adaptation to the local conditions of the respective region and the fact that the animals have lived as long as possible under natural conditions. A uniform coat color can help ensure that the animals are viewed as wild horses by the general public:
- North Iberian type
- Asturcon pony : wild in the northern mountains of Spain
- Galician pony : Several wild herds live in northwestern Spain
- Losiño : feral herds in northern Spain
- Garrano : wild population in the Peneda-Gerês National Park in northern Portugal
- Pottoka : overgrown in the Basque Country of northern Spain
- Bosniak : completely free-ranging herds around Livno and Kupres in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Camargue horse : Free- living in the Rhone Delta for an unknown time
- Dartmoor Pony : herds of wild animals in Dartmoor National Park; originally corresponds to the Exmoor horse, but not uniform in appearance due to the crossbreeding of Shetland ponies and other breeds
- Konik type
- Konik : robust Polish pony breed, released in some reserves, large populations in Oostvaardersplassen, for example
- Dülmen horse : small population living in the enclosed nature reserve Wildpferdebahn in North Rhine-Westphalia, which goes back to the Middle Ages. By crossing Konik stallions, the animals largely correspond to the Konik outwardly
- Serbian mountain horse type:
- Serbian mountain horse : a group lives completely wild in the Stara Planina nature park
- Karakachan horse : primitive breed from the mountains of Bulgaria; corresponds to the type of the Serbian mountain horse; wild populations
- Exmoor pony : brown to black-brown colored horse with a distinctive flour mouth, which has been documented since the 11th century; sturdy physique, very hardy, occurs wild in Exmoor National Park and other protected areas in Western Europe
- Giara horse : feral in Sardinia
- Hutsule : Eastern European pony breed, some wild populations in Hungary and Ukraine
- Icelandic horse : robust Icelandic horse breed.
- Danube Delta Horse : wild population in the Danube Delta for several centuries
- Monterufoli pony : lives wild in a nature reserve near Pisa
- New Forest Pony : semi-wild herd in the New Forest
- Pentro horse : primitive horse type of the wetlands of southern Italy
- Retuerta : completely wild in the Coto de Doñana National Park in Andalusia
- Sanfratellano : feral living in the Nebrodi nature park in Sicily, related to the Camargue horse
- Sorraia : formerly wild horse of Portugal, related to the Lusitano and Mustangs
- Welsh pony : feral herds in Wales
See also
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 (English).
- VG Heptner: Mammals of the Soviet Union. Vol. I: Ungulates . Leiden, New York, 1989 ISBN 9004088741
- M. Bunzel-Drüke, C. Böhm, P. Finck, G. Kämmer, R. Luick, E. Reisinger, U. Riecken, J. Riedl, M. Scharf, O. Zimball: Wilde Weiden. Practical guide for year-round grazing in nature conservation and landscape development. ABU eV, 2008 ISBN 978-3-00-024385-1 . Pp. 34-44.
- Cis Van Vuure: On the origin of the Polish konik and its relation to Dutch nature management. Lutra 2014. 57 (2): 1, pp. 11-130.
- Cis Van Vuure: From kaikan to konik - Facts and perceptions surrounding the European wild horse and the Polish konik. Warsaw : Semper, Warsaw 2015. ISBN 978-83-7507-185-6 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Clive Roots: Domestication. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport (Connecticut, USA), London 2007, ISBN 978-0-313-33987-5 . P. 15.
- ↑ csr / dpa: Przewalski horse but not a wild horse. February 23, 2018, accessed February 23, 2018 .
- ↑ C. Gaunitz; A. Fages; K. Hanghøj; A. Albrechtsen; N. Khan; M. Schubert; A. Seguin-Orlando; IJ Owens; S. Felkel; O. Bignon-Lau; P. de Barros Damgaard; A. Mittnik; AF Mohaseb; H. Davoudi; S. Alquraishi; AH Alfarhan; KAS Al-Rasheid; E. Crubézy; N. Benecke; S. Olsen; D. Brown; D. Anthony; K. Massy; V. Pitulko; A. Kasparov; G. Brem; M. Hofreiter; G. Mukhtarova; N. Baimukhanov; L. Lõugas; V. Onar; PW Stockhammer; J. Krause; B. Boldgiv; S. Undrakhbold; D. earth baatar; S. Lepetz; M. Mashkour; A. Ludwig; B. Wallner; V. Merz; I. Merz; V. Zaibert; E. Willerslev; E. Librado; AK outram; L. Orlando: Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski's horses . In: Science . Online, February 22, 2018, doi : 10.1126 / science.aao3297 .
- ↑ a b c Vera Warmuth, Anders Eriksson, Mim Ann Bower, Graeme Barker, Elizabeth Barrett, Bryan Kent Hanks, Shuicheng Li, David Lomitashvili, Maria Ochir-Goryaeva, Grigory V. Sizonov, Vasiliy Soyonov, Andrea Manica: Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe In: PNAS , Volume 109, No. 21, 2012, pp. 1–5, doi : 10.1073 / pnas.1111122109 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Tadeusz Jezierski, Zbigniew Jaworski: The Polish Konik. Die Neue Brehm-Bücherei Vol. 658, Westarp Sciences, Hohenwarsleben 2008.
- ^ B. Wallner, G. Brem, M. Müller, R. Achmann: Fixed nucleotide differences on the Y chromosome indicate clear divergence between Equus przewalskii and Equus caballus . Animal Genetics 2003; 34 (6): 453-456
- ↑ a b Ludwig et al. 2009: Coat color variation at the beginning of horse domestication
- ↑ a b c d Pruvost et al. 2011: Genotypes of predomestic horses match phenotypes painted in paleolithic works of cave art
- ↑ a b c d Baker, Sue, 2008: Exmoor Ponies: Survival of the Fittest - A natural history.
- ↑ a b c d Smith, Charles Hamilton (1814/1866). The Natural history of Horses, with Memoir of Gesner.
- ↑ a b c d e Margret Bunzel-Drüke, Carsten Böhm, Peter Finck, Gerd Kämmer, Rainer Luick, Edgar Reisinger, Uwe Riecken, Johannes Riedl, Matthias Scharf, Olaf Zimball: "Wilde Weiden". Practical guide for year-round grazing in nature conservation and landscape development. 2nd Edition. Working group for biological environmental protection in the Soest district, Bad Sassendorf-Lohne 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-024385-1 .
- ↑ Outram, AK, Stear, NA, Bendrey, R., Olsen, S., Kasparov, A., Zaibert, V., Thorpe, N. and Evershed, RP 2009 The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking Science. 323 (5919): 1332-1335
- ↑ Lindgren et al. 2004: Limited number of patrilines in horse domestication
- ↑ a b c Jansen et al. 2002: Mitochondrial DNA and the origins of the domestic horse
- ↑ Cieslak et al. 2010: Origin and History of Mitochondrial DNA lineages in domestic horses
- ↑ Jordana & Sanchez, 1995: Analysis of genetic relationships in horse breeds
- ↑ Henri Kerkdijk Otten: Where did the wild horse go? ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Foundation for Restoring European Ecosystems. FREE
