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Archive 1

interbreeding with other equids

The article states that experts are not in agreement as to whether domestic horses and Przewalski's Horse are really separate species. But the two species differ in how many chromosomes they possess. Domestic horses have 64 chromosomes, while Przewalski's Horse have 66. The article states that domestic horses and Przewalski's Horse are the only two equids that can interbreed. The article on the horse says that the reason why donkeys and horses can't interbreed is that they differ in the number of chromosomes they have. Donkeys only have 62. So, then, why aren't the cross between a domestic horse and a P's horse sterile?

Because a different species is not defined by it's number of chromosomes alone. Maybe this quote from Status and Action Plan for the Przewalski’s Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) by Simon Wakefield, John Knowles, Waltraut Zimmermann and Machteld van Dierendonck will help you understand:
"Although Przewalski’s horse can hybridise with domestic horses to produce fertile offspring (Ryder et al. 1978; Trommerhausen-Smith et al. 1979), the existence of 2n=66 chromosomes in Przewalski’s horse identifies it as being more different from its domestic relatives (2n=64) than are any two breeds of domestic horse (Ryder 1994). They also show a number of other consistent differences in their appearance: the manes of Przewalski’s horses are erect with no forelock, and the upper part of the tail has short guard hairs, unlike domestic horses, which have long, falling manes and long guard hairs all over the tail; a dark dorsal stripe runs from the mane down the back and dorsal side of the tail to the tail tuft; three to ten dark stripes can be present on the carpus and, generally, the tarsus (Groves 1994). Przewalski horses, contrary to domestic horses, shed their tail and mane hair once per year.
Other studies of the genetic differences between Przewalski’s and domestic horses have indicated very little genetic distinction between them. Only four alleles at four separate serological marker loci have been identified as specific to Przewalski’s horse (Bowling and Ryder 1987), the vast majority of blood protein variants are present in both Przewalski’s and domestic horses and even the fastest evolving DNA region known in mammals (the mitochondrial DNA control region), does not show significant differences between the two types of horse (Ishida et al. 1995; Oakenfull and Ryder 1998). Thus it is clear that Przewalski’s and domestic horses are very closely related and have in the past interbred, but the fixed chromosomal number difference between them indicates that they are distinct populations (Oakenfull et al. 2000)." So they are not two seperate species, but belong to the same one! Pmaas 11:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
And another possible helpfull quote from Ishida, N., Oyunsuren, T., Mashima, S., Mukoyama, H., and Saitou, N. J Mol Evol. 1995. Mitochondrial DNA sequences of various species of the genus Equus with special reference to the phylogenetic relationship between Przewalskii's wild horse and domestic horse. Journal of molecular evolution; 41(2): 180–188. [1]:
"The noncoding region between tRNAPro and the large conserved sequence block is the most variable region in the mammalian mitochondrial DNA D-loop region. This variable region (ca. 270 bp) of four species of Equus, including Mongolian and Japanese native domestic horses as well as Przewalskii's (or Mongolian) wild horse, were sequenced. These data were compared with our recently published Thoroughbred horse mitochondrial DNA sequences. The evolutionary rate of this region among the four species of Equus was estimated to be 2-4 x 10(-8) per site per year. Phylogenetic trees of Equus species demonstrate that Przewalskii's wild horse is within the genetic variation among the domestic horse. This suggests that the chromosome number change (probably increase) of the Przewalskii's wild horse occurred rather recently." Pmaas 11:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"The Przewalski horse has 66 chromosomes, while the domestic horse has 64. The Przewalski horse can be crossed successfully with the domestic horse, producing offspring with 65 chromosomes. Unlike the offspring of a domestic horse and an animal such as a donkey or zebra, the offspring of a Przewalski/domestic horse is not sterile and can be crossed back to either species. If the offspring is crossed back to a domestic horse, the resulting animal will have 64 chromosomes and very few Przewalski characteristics."

65 chromosome horses cannot breed with other 65 chromosome horses. I've included this information in the article with a reference. HeWasCalledYClept (talk) 19:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Did I read that right?

I think that the articles says that the UK Forestry Commission hopes the horses will help recreate scenes from the Iron Age? What does the pronoun reference? Please make that a lttle clearer to eliminate ambiguity.

hey thats great

I've found the reference! Pmaas 08:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Forestry Commission. 2004. FC Wales turns clock back thousands of years with 'wild' solution to looking after ancient forest site. News release, No: 7001, 16 September 2004. [2]
how about putting in that as a footnote in the main article? Or I can...  !Montanabw 04:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

size

I came here looking for their size. What am I supposed to do with a value for their length when horses are usually measured by their shoulder height? Any way to convert this? dab (ᛏ) 16:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

They are 12 to 13 hands, I put in a reference. However, the stallion at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, looked bigger, closer to 14 hands. Maybe just soft living! Montanabw 04:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Numbers

According to Prague Zoo who maintains the studbook of Przewalski's horse there were 1860 horses of which less than 300 were living freely. [3] The studbook contains records of 4650 horses since 1899. The 1,500 numbers in the article are those in zoos (e.g. 1495 in 2002).

There's also second area, Tachin Tal in the Gobi national park, where the horses are reintroduced (somehow less sucessful than the Hustai Nuuu). Pavel Vozenilek 11:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

removed section

I removed the section "Interesting Facts". The section had been marked with {{citation needed}} since 25 June 2006. Michael Slone (talk) 05:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No disagreement here, looks like vandalism, actually. I'm surprised none of us got around to tossing it earlier. Thanks. Montanabw 18:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Current Conservation Status

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/41763 is Critically Endangered (CR). Aepryus (talk) 08:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that is new. The IUCN list had been out of date for quite a while, as the link currently used as a reference in the article explains. Actually, the "History" section of the article also mentions this, so both the reference and the text should probably be updated to reflect the change. --Latebird (talk) 22:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Horse taxonomy discussion at wikiproject

I posted a bunch of thoughts about the taxonomy of the horses on the Wikiproject Equine here, because of its cross article scope. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

9-31

It says there were 9-31 horses in 1945, but then it says that the 9 made todays population. what about the the other population possibilities in 1945?

By the way i'm doing Przewalski's Horse for an endangered animals project. :)

It means that while there were 31 horses in captivity in 1945, only 9 of them had offspring whose descendants are alive today. I don't know what happened to the others; some may have never reproduced, others may have had offspring that died, etc... You may want to look at the sources footnoted in the article and see if they expand on the topic more. Montanabw(talk) 05:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation (IPA vs Imitated)

The Sound file for pronunciation doesn't seem to be working. Can someone spell out for me in plain English how to say the name of this horse, please? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:10, 25 June 2011 (UTC) Just saw the section above where it's spelled out as "Sheh-VAL-ski". Virtually no one reads IPA so I've included this in the lead. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

We shall see how long it lasts. I share your dislike of IPA, but every time I have tried this, I've been shot down. Good luck to you. Montanabw(talk) 05:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah. There seems to be a small but effective mob of editors who actually think IPA is more useful than simple English phonetic spelling. LOL. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
All I know is that I've been dogpiled and lost every time. Sigh. Montanabw(talk) 19:43, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
There's a double issue actually, that approximately 0.1% of Americans have any idea what IPA is, and that the several IPA mafias that alternate seize control of Wikipedia pronunciation templates actually use bad IPA transliterations that are more compromise mishmashes of British and American speech than the underlying phonemes of English. I hand-enter both a correct IPA rendering, and an "imitated" pronunciation for Americans, as I have done here. Not sure if killer Wikirobots come to undo me later. (But Montanabw, note to see "Pronunciation" section above about the alleged "dropped P" pronunciation.)
It's a general rule on wikipedia to provide multiple pronunciation where there are regional differences, so I see no reason not to list both forms (or more). My nearest dictionary shows a three syllable pronunciation with the "p", another shows three syllables without. As far as IPA, you will note my previous comment was 2-1/2 years ago and if anything, IPA is now even more entrenched. It's no more difficult to use IPA than any other pronunciation guide that needs weird characters not found on a standard keyboard (I have to look all of them up, if I am forced to care) and it is preferred by the MOS, so even though I have little interest in dealing with it, feel free to include all versions. Montanabw(talk) 18:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Material moved from article

Some material on DNA studies was placed into the article, but as the sources were only news stories, and the claims rather extraordinary, I believe this material should be placed here at talk so our folks who know DNA and such can take a look at these claims. Terms like "almost" or "close to" are worrisome, and given how many horse breeds just love to claim descent from ancient ancestors, such claims usually need stricter scrutiny. Montanabw(talk) 03:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC) So here's the material:

Possible modern descendants

From 2003, there has been research to explore the genetic relationship between the Przewalski's horse and local domesticated horse breeds in Northern Thailand and Cambodia, which it resembles. Chromosomal studies from hair and blood samples have been done by Carla L. Carleton of Michigan State University and Siraya Chunekamrai of the Lampang Pony Welfare Foundation. Preliminary results announced in 2009 found that Thai ponies had substantially different numbers of alleles per locus compared to domestic horse breeds, and is likely more closely related to more primitive ancestors, possibly the Przewalski's horse. Further studies are still pending.<ref>{{cite web|title=Thai Ponies as a World Heritage: DNA Results|url=http://www.lampangponywelfare.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57%3Abangkok-february-23-2010&catid=34%3Aresearch&Itemid=41&lang=en|work=Lampang Pony Welfare Foundation website|accessdate=15 February 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Duangmee|first=Phoowadon|title=Ride him with pride|url=http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/08/07/life/Ride-him-with-pride-30162080.html|accessdate=15 February 2012|newspaper=The Nation|date=7 August 2011}}</ref>

Beijing Zoo specimen? Amazing sight

In May 2009 and 2010 I saw what I'm now pretty sure is a Przewalski, but I would appreciate information from anybody who sees it. The Beijing Zoo is modernizing rapidly but still extremely casual in the older parts, and there was no information, It's an amazing sight, even if you're not a horse lover, because it seems to have trotted right off the wall of a cave painting. The horse I saw was in a small petting exhibit for children near the giraffes, on the far side from Xizhermenwai, by the Aquarium entrance. It required a few yuan more to enter. The horse was small, just as the article describes, very friendly, and it leaned heavily against me while I patted it and stroked that wonderful brush-like mane. It's quite an experience to pet a horse from a Cro Magnon cave painting. Profhum (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The United States Government

More on equine genetics Cytogenetic studies of three equine hybrids. — Preceding unsigned comment added by QASIMARA (talk • contribs) 01:38, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Purity of Current Stock?

Previous to reading the current incarnation of the article, I had the impression from somewhere that the few remaining Przewalski horses in European zoos in the 20th Century were not purebreds.

But perhaps I was confusing this with there being some feral horses in Mongolia that people had claimed were Przewalskis, but weren't...

Then again, we are reading here about apparent confusion in genetic distinction between domestic horses and Przewalskis.

So what is the story?

Keeping in mind that romantics want them to be pure, and conservationists today "define" species into existence when it will aid some conservation goal.

And keeping in mind that the moment they're released into the wild, isn't there a likelihood of crossing with feral/pastured domestic horses anyway?

Has recent genetic testing clarified the situation? Note that with cross-backs it's possible to have the 66 chromosomes, but some domestic ancestry.

Then there's the further issue that domestic horses might have some Przewalski in them... from interbreeding during the early human expansion of domestic herds.

Go out and find the peer-reviewed literature on the topic. There's plenty of it. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone who hasn't looked at the research and can't even be bothered to sign their posts. There is a domesticated Mongolian horse breed, but the Przewalski's horse has a different number of chromosomes than do domesticated horses, so it's pretty easy to figure out if something is a crossbred. Montanabw(talk) 18:48, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
You didn't answer the unsigned comment above. I also understood there were no pure Przewalski horses and am surprised not to find this reflected in the article. My source was the Przewalski reverse breeding program at the Minnesota Zoo, where they began selectively refining the Przewalski strain in the latter 1970s / early 1980s. By implication, reverse breeding and refining the strain wouldn't be necessary if we truly have pure Przewalski horses, would it? Enquiring minds want to know. --71.47.172.126 (talk) 01:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Not my job to answer a fringe theory. Go find some evidence one way or the other. Montanabw(talk) 19:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Another non-answer. If zoologists in a reverse breeding program at accredited zoos made this claim, I'd say that fairly substantial. You've now had two people raise the question, so I might suggest dealing with facts rather than act snarky. --71.47.172.126 (talk) 03:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
There was no snark involved. It's our jobs to find verifiable and reliable sources from which to create article text. It's not our job to interpret those sources and create new informaiton. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. No one has the least amount of time or interest in addressing weird fringe theories. Montanabw(talk) 22:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Replace main photo?

Hello. I work for the "Association Takh", a nonprofit that reintroduced Przewalski's horses to Mongolia 10 years ago. We continue to work at the reintroduction site in western Mongolia on the conservation and research of the species. I have noted that the photo on the wikipedia page, while it is a lovely photo, does not represent a typical Przewalski's horse. As you all might know, the species is physically known for a white muzzle and pale-colored belly. Typically, Przewalski's horses also have stripes on the legs and the head is wider than the individual on the wikipedia page. We have many,many photos taken in Mongolia of Przewalski's horses, however I felt that the best protocol was to post the suggestion of replacing the photo here on the talk page. If you agree, I would be happy to provide a few photos that might be more representative of the species. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimnotin (talk • contribs) 14:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Am I to assume that no response means that the community accepts that I change the first photo? Phorse (talk) 12:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
No, the community is waiting to see what you have. The existing photo is acceptable, but if you wish to link to better ones that are uploaded to Wikimedia commons, show us here and we will take a look. There are many reasons a photo might not be acceptable, the most important of which is a copyright problem, but also poor quality images and so on... Montanabw(talk) 05:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. I uploaded 3 photos to Wikimedia commons. The criteria I used to choose a photo that is representative of the species are: pale belly, pale nose, striped and/or dark legs, head that is large and somewhat rectangular, and the erect and short mane (typical for all wild equids, not just the Przewalski's horse). Here are the links to 3 possible photos: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Przewalskis_horse_01.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Przewalskis_horse_02.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Przewalskis_horse_03.jpg I could replace them with highresolution version if need be. Phorse (talk) 10:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
File:Przewalskis horse 02.jpg is quite suitable. I'll add it. Thanks for uploading those! Montanabw(talk) 21:44, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Przewalski was a Russian explorer not Polish. Is this so hard to check? Not everybody with a Polish last name is Polish, alas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.206.89.64 (talk) 23:29, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

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Pronunciation

"pronounced /ʃɨˈvælskiː/ or /zɨˈvɑːlskiː/, etc."

Is this a error?

IchigoKurosaki (talk) 17:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't get IPA symbols very well, but phonetically, it should be "Sheh-VAL-ski". So whatever IPA makes that work, that's what we need. Montanabw(talk) 19:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

It's an interesting question. Is the name of the horse in fact pronounced differently from the name of the person? Whether Polish (as given above) or Russian ([prʐɛˈvalʲskʲi] given if you follow the link of the man), the 'p' is pronounced at the beginning. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 16:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

If we go to English language usage for the animal, the "p" is dropped. Montanabw(talk) 23:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
According to Oxford English Dictionary it is "per-zuh-VAHL-skee". I have added that, and as there was no reference for the alleged "dropped P" pronunciations described above (there were 2 variants given in the article), I have deleted them. If you have an authoritative source -- an English dictionary or other authoritative printed source, not a fan website on horses -- for these "dropped P" pronunciations, then please add them back as an alternate version (leaving the OED pronunciation as first). But I suspect that that is someone personally trying to adapt the Polish pronunciation to an English mouth and thus ending up with something like pneumonia, not a well-established English pronunciation. (Note to avoid the circular problem of sources which got their pronunciation from Wikipedia... thus needs to be a printed academic book, etc.)
Signed for archiving purposes only.  William Harris |talk  22:54, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

I have photographs of Hungarian Prezwalski horses my friend has in Szarvas , Hungary.

I was on holiday in Szarvas Hungary. On Aug. 5th, we vistited the neighbors, in Bekeschuba, and they have 7 P. horses. I will post the pictures here soon. Stay tuned........

Signed for archiving purposes only.  William Harris |talk  22:54, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 (talk) 07:32, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Przewalski's horse → Przewalski's Horse –

Similar to Talk:American_Paint_Horse#Requested_moves.

In this specific breed, "horse" is part of the breed name. See International Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds, where only a few breeds include the word "horse". Enric Naval (talk) 22:35, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Striking the above; as a sub-species rather than a breed, it should probably not be capitalised. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
  • support - Horse is part of the breed name. Aren't there a number of other animals named after Przewalski? Never mind ... plants. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:15, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support I think it's the species name, not simply a breed name. Though I'm not going to treat this like a moral issue. But it seems appropriate. Montanabw(talk) 00:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Per above, I do agree and acknowledge is a separate subspecies of equus. I agree, it's not a "breed." But the capitalization of common names issue is different from the use of lower case in species names, so though there IS more room for debate here than the shitstorm over bird names may suggest, I really am not going to draw a line in the sand on this one. I DGAF, really. Montanabw(talk) 19:54, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per MOS:LIFE. This should be administratively, speedily closed as rehash and forum shopping. This entire matter of lower- vs. upper-case species names was settled after an enormous debate and a very well-reasoned close at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 156#Bird common name decapitalisation. Nominator is confusing this species name with a domestic breed name (and there is actually no consensus on WP to capitalize the names of breeds anyway). If you want to re-open a debate against the consensus that species names should be lower case except where they contain a proper name, the correct venue is challenging the aforementioned MOS close and the resultant moves of bird species articles to lower-case names, at WP:Move review.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:12, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Article is about a subspecies (not breed) of horse: "is a rare and endangered subspecies". Note that this is Equus ferus przewalskii, while German Shepherd is still Canis lupus familiaris, the same subspecies as all other dogs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHunterJ (talk • contribs)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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who wrote this i need to ame a citation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.166.7.212 (talk) 14:21, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Beijing Zoo has what looks like one

Can anyone who has been to Beijing more recently than I verify if a very small horse in the petting enclosure near the giraffes is a Przewalski? I couldn't read the caption in Chinese. The waist-high size, but more importantly, the mane, suggests it is. One would expect Beijing to have one, if anybody would in China. If you pat it, it leans against you like a friendly dog, enjoying it. Last saw it in 2011. Profhum (talk) 09:31, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Might want to post at WikiProject China as to anyone who has actually been there. The adult Przewalski's I've seen in places like the National Zoo in the USA have looked to me in the 13 to 14 hands (52 to 56 inches, 132 to 142 cm) range, which is small, but taller than "waist high." Perhaps the one you saw was a foal or yearling. Montanabw(talk) 17:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Source material

New study about diet and foraging behavior in the wild: http://www.thehorse.com/articles/38491/tail-hairs-reveal-gobi-desert-equids-dietary-choices Montanabw(talk) 17:51, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Source 30 is now pointing to a missing page. Here is a replacement from NBC News: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25211052/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/rare-horse-gets-reverse-vasectomy/ 81.136.160.186 (talk) 14:07, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Namesake

Who the heck was Przewalski?

– Dziękuję. Sca (talk) 16:24, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Never mind, it was Nikolay Przhevalsky, known in Polish as Nikołaj Przewalski. This should be added to the article. Sca (talk) 16:30, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
 Done Sca (talk) 20:11, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Feral, not wild

Based on the latest DNA analysis, Przewalski’s horses were in the same part of the phylogenetic tree as the Botai horses. From their relationship, it was clear that these “wild” horses were escaped Botai horses.

The media release - Ancient DNA upends the horse family tree: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/ancient-dna-upends-horse-family-tree

The report - Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski’s horses: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/02/21/science.aao3297

William Harris • (talk) • 09:24, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and this means the article needs to be cleaned up. Right now we have "DNA research proved that they actually descend from the Horses of Botai, the most ancient known race of domesticated horses" and "This puts to rest the theory that Przewalski horses were derived from domestic horses". --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 13:18, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
It's certainly worth mentioning, but I would exercise caution. Remember WP:SCHOLARSHIP - these are tentative results that have only just been released, therefore cannot be said to have entered academic consensus as of yet. It's certainly very interesting, but has to weather the storm of peer scrutiny before it can be considered as fact. I think phrases such as "puts to rest" are a bit premature. Wasechun tashunkaHOWLTRACK 17:44, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Wasechun tashunka, this is a very preliminary study, and news releases often state conclusions that the actual study does not back. I agree that we need to tread with considerable caution (for example, horses corraled and eaten may not have been "domesticated" in the "able to ride them" sense). Montanabw(talk) 18:41, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Certainly, yes, a temperate approach is required. But at present the article contains contradictory statements. Richardson mcphillips (talk) 22:08, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

This isn't someone's thesis, this is an international team publishing their work in Science. The team includes Michael Hofreiter and with Ludovic Orlando coordinating it - these lads are at the forefront of their game and there is no mistake. You will be waiting about 3 years before a secondary author can get their head around what this team has done and provides a secondary source - these guys will have long moved on from then. I have raised the article's existence, it is now up the the editors associated with this page to progress as they think best. I will now visit the elephant page - DNA confirms three species and not two. William Harris • (talk) • 08:24, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
I just got a copy of the actual study today and am reading it. Given that there is a lot of technical content on methodology, I also shot off an email to a geneticist (PhD person who does horse research) to give me a scientist's take on the quality of the analysis, as I can only roughly interpret some of what they did (being that I'm not a geneticist). We can all take a look at how to use WP:PRIMARY in a way to bring this article up to date and clean up the contradictions. (If Richardson mcphillips and William Harris want to flag the contradiction areas with a [dubious – discuss] tag, that will help us main editors get to them a little faster. In the meantime, the elephant thing sounds completely fascinating! Montanabw(talk) 16:55, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
I did a pretty major rewrite of the Lineage section, but this was largely a cleanup of the pre-existing text - removed some inelegant phrasing, removed a segment that was flagged as unreferenced and wasn't entirely clear what it was trying to say anyhow, reduced redundancy and rearranged. Though I did expand the description of the new study a little, I have kept it isolated rather than fully integrating it in the section (other than to explicitly indicate earlier studies of domestic horses were addressing 'modern' ones), and if it is viewed as premature it can be removed without affecting the rest of the section. It should be noted that it is premature, at least in one sense: the recent study has not been formally published yet - what is available now is a paywalled pre-publication release, and usually these closely resemble the final publication but I can recall one instance in which a Science pre-release was found over the next several weeks to be so fatally flawed that it never formally appeared in the journal. Agricolae (talk) 17:42, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Contradiction regarding the population in the Chernobyl exclusion zone

The Population section contains a sentence and reference, "A population introduced in 1998 exists in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone protected from interference by humans, and is thought to be increasing in size.[21]" The reference is to a National Geographic article which gives no figures and sends a mixed message regarding the poaching problem. The Conservation efforts section flatly contradicts the sentence under Population, stating, "In Chernobyl, the population reproduced at a high rate, reaching up to 200 individuals until poachers decreased their number to just 60 in recent years.[30] As of 2011, only an estimated 30–40 individuals remained." I'm not sure what to make of the twin figures (60 vs 30-40) in the latter statement, is it better of worse than no figures from National Geographic? Does the National Geographic page really say horse numbers are increasing? I'm not really capable of focusing enough to judge any of this, not even if I wanted to merely adjust the language of the one or other of those sentences to mitigate the contradiction. I wish I was, contradictions like this don't encourage confidence in Wikipedia, and I wish I could improve the situation. eekee (talk) 13:38, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Addendum: I've been reading a few more pages on National Geographic today, and I'm not impressed by the quality of their reporting. I'm uncomfortable with their sensationalism. Even though sensationalism is perhaps necessary for a journal today, it's creepy when they toss in as "facts" things which were not reported closer to the time. For instance, placing "the first fossil hunter" in the 1920s! Maybe he was the first professional, I don't know. Another concerns the "little green men" annotation on a signal trace which led to the discovery of pulsars. NG categorically states the discoverer's boss was certain the signal was artificial. When I previously read about it, 30 years closer to the incident in question, I received no such impression at all. The discoverer and her boss merely joked about the possibility. Perhaps these flaws are inherent in the production of a popular magazine. eekee (talk) 14:22, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Geographic range

Other than “Gobi desert, Mongolia,” I don’t think there was any particular study of geographic distribution before the first extinction in the wild. @Agricolae:, if you know something I don’t, do link, but I don’t see the value of tagging for something that is not really doable? Montanabw(talk) 19:18, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Bouman has pages on it, (thought I can't see it in the Google view available to me online). There is more to be said about the existence and natural history of this original wild population than just that 'they were rare in the wild when several were put in zoos'. Agricolae (talk) 19:36, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
I can access some pages in Google, not sure if enough. I’m open to improvements...is there anything in particular you need to see? Montanabw(talk) 19:44, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
I would like to see something . . . anything . . . on the wild species. I mentioned the range as just one example of the type of information needed. All we say about the entire period from its discovery to its elimination is "The native population declined in the 20th century due to a combination of factors, with the wild population in Mongolia dying out in the 1960s." What factors? Based on what observations was it known to be in decline? We report when it was last seen, but where? Is it really not known more specifically that the Gobi? And how about the interactions of the local human population with the wild horses? etc. As currently written we seem only interested in the original population solely as a source for the zoo/reintroduced population, rather than as an entity itself meriting description. It would be like having an article on the California condor that only begins with it being taken into captivity in the 1980s, and only describing its captive rearing and re-release. Agricolae (talk) 20:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
I hear you, it’s a time and priority issue for me. If you want to do a bit, I’d be glad to have a hand...Montanabw(talk) 21:21, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
I would have already done some if I had the time and sources, so I fully understand. Agricolae (talk) 23:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Namesake

This keeps coming up (again today), so I am going to raise the issue explicitly. We don't have any source for the Polish rendering of his name, which is important here (much more so even than on his biography page) as being eponymous for the horse. People periodically change it, and the change gets reverted because they don't have a source for the change, but to be fair we don't have a source for the version that we are using. His page is no help, and a simple GB search turns up both Nikolaj and Mikolaj, and I don't know how many other variants because you only find what you search for, and I don't even know what criteria to use in order to determine which we should prefer. Or maybe it is better to duck the question and find a way to present only his Polish surname. Anyone have any thoughts? Agricolae (talk) 23:07, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

a couple of cites

I have tracked down a couple of cites for the last observed wild horses in the 1960s, but don't have access to more than the abstract. They would make a good addition to the documentation if someone can view them in full:

Agricolae (talk) 16:21, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Cloning inaccuracy

This is just a belated notice that the cloning section, which I wrote a while back, includes a little white lie. This minor inaccuracy mirrors the reporting, but is technically incorrect: that the cloned horse is genetically identical to the nucleus donor. It is not. It has an identical nuclear genome to the donor, but its mtDNA is that of the recipient egg donor - a domestic horse mare. As a stallion, the clone will not pass on the strictly maternally-inherited mtDNA to offspring, so there are no consequences for species purity and conservation, but it is incorrect. Nonetheless, the sources do not draw this distinction and I couldn't come up with a way of explaining it without a distracting descent into molecular genetics. After several failed attempts, I decided the least disruptive, non-WP:OR solution would be to just follow the sources and ignore the technical inaccuracy, but if anyone can come up with a parsimonious way of drawing the distinction, have at it. Agricolae (talk) 18:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 August 2020 and 2 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kaira Hosnedl.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Why feral, not wild?

Can anyone explain why the authors of the 2018 Science article could conclude that the Przewalski horse has Botai ancestors... as opposed to merely being related? In my simplistic understanding, I would imagine that there is merely a certain amount of identical & of different genetic sequences... that possibly there are differences among regularly mutating sequences (e.g., mitochondria?), so it would be possible to decide at what time two groups split / when two groups last interbred... ... ... but then how can the authors conclude, that indidividual X (or: group X = studied Botai horses) is an ancestor of individual Y (Przewalski horse)? ... let alone, conclude that X was domestic when procreating? [Possible alternative explanations: X is offspring of the wild horses Z, and Z are also the ancestors of Y... or X was born wild, procreated (producing a filly or fillies A), and was later domesticated... while A became the ancestors of Y?]

I'm sure the authors thought this through, and I would love to understand at least marginally how their genetic data led to their conclusions! Thanks for any attempts at an explanation! --Ibn Battuta (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

It’s more that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” The Botai clearly captured, tamed, and held horses of Przewalski ancestry in an isolated instance of possible domestication. But the two questions are a) does this constitute “domestication of the horse”? and b) does this render all Przewalski horses “domesticated?” In other words, all extant members of e.ferus caballus do trace to previously domesticated horses, but this does not appear to be true of the Przewalski population. Or if it is, we need more studies that replicate the findings of this one. So we are, basically, watching the science before making major changes. Montanabw(talk) 18:15, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
The core argument is based on a genetic tree. If you map out the genetics of all of the archaeological specimens, they will form a tree, a hypothetical branching pattern that produced the observed diversity. Likewise, if you map out 'wild' specimens they will produce a tree. If you combine these two trees, in the most parsimonious (and simplistic) model you will see one of two things. If the Botai horses were the product of domesticating a wild Przewalski horse, then the entire tree of the Botai horses will appear to be a single branch among the Przewalski horse tree. However, if the Przewalski are feral Botai domestic horses, then the Przewalski will represent one branch within the Botai horses:
wild horses
are feral		domestic horses
from wild
Przew1
Botai3Botai4Przew2
Botai1Botai2Przew3
Przew1Botai1
Przew2Przew3Botai2Botai3
What they observed was that the Przewalski's horses nested within the Botai tree, thereby suggesting that they are a feral population. The problem with this analysis is that the severely restricted modern Przewalski population will have a distorting effect on the genetic analysis - if the Botai tree derives from independent captives of a diverse wild population, the highly inbred modern population will look like it nests within the Botai tree, even though the Botai and modern samples are all representing the original diverse Przewalski population, lost in the modern population because of the wild population's genetic bottleneck. Agricolae (talk) 19:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. So how do they determine which population nests in which one? (From the way you explain it, it sounds a bit like genetic variance. But then again, how could they determine variance given they studied the genetical make-up of just one Przewalski horse? Wouldn't they need at the very least two? Or what did they use?) Thanks in advance, Ibn Battuta (talk) 09:01, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean. With only one Przewalski, it is either more similar to some Botai than either that Przewalski and that Botai are to the other Borai, as opposed to all Botai clustering together as sister group of the Przewalski. In terms of how they actually do it, they sequence the DNA, compile a 'complete' genome for each, then plug the sequences into an algorithm that predicts branching patterns based on single nucleotide polymorphisms and INDELs, taking two and asking to which a third sequence is closer based on the variation among sequences, then they (or, rather, the algorithm) progressively add each subsequent sequence and ask the same question (and because order of addition and quirks of the analysis has been shown to have an effect, they usually repeat the analysis independently numerous times with every possible order of addition, hundreds or even thousands of times in total, and produce an 'average' tree of those variants most commonly arrived at, or simply present the most common ones as alternatives). Agricolae (talk) 11:47, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


wild horses
are feral		domestic horses
from wild
Botai2Botai3Przew1Botai1Przew1Botai1Botai2Botai3
Another thing that jumped out at me as an error in the study is that they didn’t consider the question of whether the attempted domestication of Przewalski horses was a failed experiment. The reason they are deemed wild today is because they simply won’t domesticate— it hasn’t been for lack of trying.Montanabw(talk) 07:24, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

If the Przewalski's horse is a feral animal should it be classified as a domestic horse or just a endangered horse? Dennis the mennis (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Not clear what you are asking. If you mean whether its status as (potentially) once-feral changes its taxonomic placement, it does not. That is based on genetics, physical characteristics and natural history. (For example, whether it was once domesticated does not change the fact that it has a different number of chromosomes.) If you are talking about referring to it as a 'domestic' as a simple description of something once domesticated, such a usage is bound to give rise to confusion, since the term 'domestic horse' is broadly used specifically refer to the other species/subspecies of equid when there is a need to distinguish it from this type of 'horse' - this is one reason there is a growing sentiment in some of the Prze research community not to refer to it as a 'horse' at all, and instead to use the Mongolian term 'takhi', while restricting the use of 'horse' to the other group (analogous to the change from using 'pigmy chimpanzee' to refer to the other species of great ape, to using the unambiguous 'bonobo' for one and 'chimpanzee' only for the other). Then something like 'domestic' reverts to its moore natural role as a simple adjective, rather than a (sub)species designator. Agricolae (talk) 13:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the Przewalski's horse shouldn't be assessed for the IUCN Red List as it is now regarded as a feral descendant of early domestic horses. Dennis the mennis (talk) 12:21, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The entire argument, however, is contingent on the Botai horses being truly domestic, i.e. selectively bred over many generations for neotony, docility, etc. as opposed to just wild animals kept in pens, as is the case for cassowaries, Asian elephants, fallow deer, etc. Until we can demonstrate that Botai horses were more than that, I think Przewalski's horses should be considered wild animals. Certainly, there are behavioural differences between them and typical domestic horses that should be taken into account. At least one paper has challenged the feral theory but unfortunately, it is only available in Russian (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327695401_Przewalski's_Horse_the_Wild_Species_or_Feral_Horse). Some of these concerns have also bee expressed in a formal response to the original paper (https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/55401) (talk) 12:40, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

With all due respect I would have to disagree that Przewalski's horses should be treated as wild animals. Wild horses no longer exist and the only truly wild equids that still exist are zebras and asses (talk) 20:09, 31 April 2021 (UTC)

That really isn't known concretely though. The feral conclusion may quite possibly have been premature, for the reasons I listed above. It seems that until their assumptions can be confirmed and concerns from other researchers addressed, we should be allowing for both possibilities. Even if the Botai horses were shown to have been truly domesticated, which they have not, I believe that it would be a mistake to revoke IUCN status from Przewalski's horses, as they were living as wild animals for millennia, retained behavioural traits associated with wild animals, possess a unique wildtype phenotype, distinct genetics, and are an important trophic element of Eurasian steppe ecosystems that should be conserved and returned (talk) 7:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

New Paper suggests that the Botai horses were never domesticated, which would make the entire premise of the feral theory questionable at best: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350581960_Rethinking_the_evidence_for_early_horse_domestication_at_Botai (talk) 17:07, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

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