On the vast grasslands of Hungary’s steppe, a stocky little horse, whose ancestor appears in cave paintings made 20,000 years ago, now runs wild.
Considered to be the only true wild horse species left in the world, Przewalski’s horses are very closely related to domestic animals and have, in the past, interbred, but the fixed two chromosomal difference shows that they are distinct populations. (Przewalski’s horses has 66 chromosomes, while the domestic horse has 64)
Most ‘wild’ horses today, such as the American mustang or Australian brumby, are feral horses descended from domesticated ones. The wild nature of Przewalski’s should not be underestimated.
How big are Przewalski’s horse and what do they look like?
The horses are stocky. If measured like domestic horses they would range from 12 to 14 hands. That’s to say, 122cm to 142cm. Normally, animals under 14.2 hands (148cm) are termed ponies, depending on the breed, but Przewalski’s are known as horses. Their faces are convex in profile, their manes stubby and upright with no forelock – the part that hangs over the forehead.
Many have a characteristic dark dorsal stripe along the back or over the shoulders – one in our herd had a double stripe over its shoulders and others had noticeable stripes on their legs. Their muzzle, the area around their eyes, and their bellies are pale. Although dun in colour there are huge variations in coloration, from the almost-white foals to the dark chocolate tones of the stallions.
How old is Przewalski’s horse?
The earliest visual evidence of Przewalski’s- type wild horses has been found in cave paintings from 20,000 years ago, in Italy, northern Spain and France, including the famous Lascaux cave drawings. The earliest written account of these horses is by a Tibetan monk around 900AD. There is also an account of wild horses spooking Genghis Khan’s horse during a campaign in 1226, which resulted in him being thrown unceremoniously to
the ground.
Why are they called Przewalski?
The species remained unknown in the West until it was recorded by a Scottish doctor travelling in the employ of Tsar Peter the Great in 1720 on a journey from St Petersburg to Peking. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the horses were identified in China by explorer Colonel Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przewalski (also spelt Przhevalsky). Subsequently, in 1881, the genus was named by IS Poliakov: Equus przewalskii. More recently, a scientific review of the taxonomy describes Przewalski’s horse as Equus ferus przewalskii.
Who was Przewalski?
Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przewalski was a Russian geographer who travelled extensively in Central and East Asia at the end of the 19th century, exploring regions then unknown in the West – northern Tibet and parts of China. On the Russian-Chinese border, he was presented with the skull and hide of a horse, the remains of which were subsequently examined and found to be a wild species. He described several previously unknown species to European science, including Przewalski’s horse and Przewalski’s gazelle.
Where did Przewalski’s horse live?
Przewalski’s horse roamed across central Europe, Mongolia and China
Why did numbers decline?
Przewalski’s wild horse suffered from increasing changes in land use, military activities, poaching for food, hard winters and climate change. When Western zoos began capturing horses between 1897 and the 1940s, this placed increasing pressure on an already severely dwindling population.
Methods of capture were typically disturbing. The horses were notoriously difficult to catch, and collectors resorted to shooting adults in order to capture foals, which were then transported to the West using surrogate mares; many did not survive.
During the 1940s and 1950s, small groups of horses were reported in Mongolia in the Yellow Mountains of the Wild Horse. The last confirmed sighting in the wild was in the Gobi Desert in 1969. By the end of World War Two, just 31 horses remained in captivity and, of these, only 12 were able to reproduce.
Are there any wild Przewalski horses today?
An organised captive-breeding effort was needed to secure the future of the species, and from that tiny remnant population all subsequent generations are now descended. In the 1950s, an important step forward was the inception of the studbook – still maintained today by Prague Zoo.
The post of European endangered species programme co-ordinator was also established at Cologne Zoo, with responsibility for upholding the health of future generations, by keeping the breeding gene pool as wide as possible. By 1990, the captive population had reached nearly 1,000, with 961 animals living in institutions across 33 countries and on four continents – enough to begin reintroducing into the wild.
Dutch wild horse enthusiasts Inge and Jan Bouman raised funds for the first reintroductions to Mongolia in 1993, where the largest number of individuals now roam free. Ecologist Dr Waltraut Zimmerman and her colleague István Sándor campaigned for and created the reintroduction in Hungary.