Tarpan

The tarpan (Equus ferus ferus) was a free-ranging horse population of the western Eurasian steppe which was first documented in the 18th century and went extinct in the early 20th century. What qualifies as a tarpan is subject to debate. It is unclear whether tarpans were a category of wild horses; domestic horses which became feral; or hybrids of domestic and wild horses. DNA sequencing suggests at least some tarpans were genetically distinct from modern domestic horses. The last individual believed to be a tarpan died in captivity in Russia in 1918, decades after the last free-ranging tarpans were captured or killed in Ukraine in the late 19th century. Beginning in the 1930s, several attempts were made to breed horses resembling the tarpans described in historical sources, through a process of selective breeding called "breeding back" by advocates. The breeds that resulted included the Heck horse, Hegardt and Stroebel's horse and a derivation of the Konik breed, all of which have a primitive appearance, particularly in having a grullo coat colour. Some of these horses are now commercially promoted as "tarpans", although such animals are only domesticated breeds and not the wild animal themselves.

Name and etymology The name "tarpan" or "tarpani" derives from a Turkic language (Kazakh or Kyrgyz) name meaning "wild horse". The Tatars and the Cossacks distinguished the wild horse from the feral horse; the latter was called Takja or Muzin.

Taxonomy The tarpan was first described by Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin in 1771; he had seen the animals in 1769 in the district of Bobrov, near Voronezh. In 1784, Pieter Boddaert named the species Equus ferus, referring to Gmelin's description. Unaware of Boddaert's name, Otto Antonius published the name Equus gmelini in 1912, again referring to Gmelin's description. Since Antonius' name refers to the same description as Boddaert's, it is a junior objective synonym. The domesticated horse, named Equus caballus by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, is now thought to be descended from the tarpan; indeed, many taxonomists consider them to belong to the same species. By a strict application of the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the tarpan ought to be named E. caballus, or if considered a subspecies E. caballus ferus. Biologists have generally ignored the letter of the rule, though, and used E. ferus for the tarpan to avoid confusion with the domesticated subspecies. Whether the small, free-roaming horses seen in the Russian steppes during 18th and 19th centuries and called "tarpan" were indeed wild, never-domesticated horses, hybrids of wild and local domestic animals, or feral horses is debated. Most studies have been based on only two preserved specimens, and research to date has not positively linked the tarpan to Pleistocene- or early Holocene-era animals. In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature "conserved the usage of 17 specific names based on wild species, which are predated by or contemporary with those based on domestic forms", confirming E. ferus for the undomesticated wild horse. Taxonomists who consider the domestic horse a subspecies of the wild horse should use Equus ferus caballus; the name Equus caballus remains available for the domestic horse where it is considered to be a separate species.

Appearance

Traditionally two subtypes have been proposed, the forest tarpan and steppe tarpan, based on minor differences in type. The general view is that the only subspecies is the tarpan, Equus ferus ferus. The last individual was between 140 and 145 centimetres (55 and 57 in; 13.3 and 14.1 hands) tall at the withers and had a grullo coat colour, dark legs, a dorsal stripe, poorly defined shoulder stripe, and a thick, semi-erect mane. Several coat colour genotypes have been identified within European wild horses from the Pleistocene and Holocene - those creating bay, black, and leopard complex are known from the wild horse population in Europe and were depicted in cave paintings of wild horses during the Pleistocene. The dun gene, a dilution gene seen in Przewalski's horse that also creates the grullo or "blue dun" coat seen in the Konik has not yet been studied in European wild horses. At least some wild horses likely had a dun coat. Historical reports are ambiguous on whether tarpans had standing manes like wild equines or falling manes like domesticated horses. The appearance of European wild horses may be reconstructed with genetic, osteologic, and historic data. One genetic study suggests that bay was the predominant colour in European wild horses. During the Mesolithic, a gene coding a black coat colour appeared on the Iberian peninsula. This colour spread east, but was less common than bay in the investigated sample and never reached Siberia. Bay in combination with dun results in the "bay dun" colour seen in Przewalski's horses; black with dun creates the grullo coat. A loss of the dun dilution may have been advantageous in more forested western European landscapes, as dark colours were a better camouflage in forests. Pangaré or "mealy" coloration, a characteristic of other wild equines, might have been present in at least some European wild horses, as historic accounts report a light belly. Historic references report that most tarpans were black dun (grullo, "blue dun") colour. Some black individuals were reported to have domestic colours like white or grey legs. Authors, such as Peter Pallas, believed tarpans to be escaped farm horses.

History

Wild horses have been present in Europe since the Pleistocene and ranged from southern France and Spain east to central Russia. Cave drawings of primitive predomestication horses are at Lascaux, France, and in Cave of Altamira, Spain, as well as artifacts believed to show the species in southern Russian empire, where a horse of this type was domesticated around 3000 BC. Equus ferus had a continuous range from Western Europe to Alaska; historic material suggests wild horses lived in most parts of Holocene continental Europe and the Eurasian steppe, except for parts of Scandinavia, Iceland, and Ireland.

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