Anecdotic
evidence is a problem when researching on how the western Eurasian wild horses
looked like. Since many authors simply copy off from other authors instead of
looking for the primary references, therefore the information of the original
descriptions sometimes get quite altered and might also be influenced by
personal preferences of the respective authors. I therefore spent some time
searching for references as close to the base as possible and also found
primary sources, and hereby I want to give an overview over what I found. I
present them here chronologically. A “P” at the end of the paragraph means that
it is from a primary source, written by people who actually saw the animals,
“S” indicates a secondary source which is written by someone who based himself
directly on a primary source, and “T” is a tertiary source which is based on a
secondary source. For example, my reference for Kozmian’s report is a passage
in a book by the Polish Academy of Sciences, therefore a secondary reference. Note
that many of the primary sources are written in Latin, so that I am basing
myself inevitably on translations, except in the case of C. H. Smith.
Herodot, 5th
century before Christ: lightly coloured (leukos)
wild horses in the Ukraine. (S) [1]
St.
Isidore, 600: Iberian wild horses: colour like a donkey, ash-coloured. (P) [2]
Albertus
Magnus, 13th century: greyish-coloured wild horses with a dorsal
stripe in Germany (S). [1]
F. Chr.
Dahlmann, 1840: Large numbers of wild horses that were hunted lived in Denmark
of the 12th century (T). [1]
H. Röslin,
1593: Wild horses were still living at Vogesen, Elsass-Lothringen. They were
faster and wilder than deer and difficult to catch. Once caught, they got tame
after some time (S). [1]
Balthasar
Haquet, 18th century: Wild horses at Zamosc: small, blackish brown,
large and thick heads. Mane and tail comparably short, stallions had a beard.
Were used in fight shows with predators and showed great bravery (S). [1]
Gabriel Rzaczynski, 1721: mostly tan or mouse-coloured.
Rytchkof,
1762: colour dun or bluish, other shades exceptional (S). [2]
Samuel
Gottlieb Gmelin, 1768: Wild horses at Woronesh, Russia. The largest of those
wild horses barely reached the size of the smallest Russian domestic horses.
The ears were very pinned and the size of domestic horses or sometimes longer
and hanging down. The eyes were fierily. The mane was short and frizzy, the
tail shorter than in domestic horses. The were typically mouse-coloured, but
white or grey horses were also reported. The belly was ashy at the base, the
legs were black from the knees downwards. The hair was long and dense during
the winter and felt more like fur than horse hair. (P, S). [1]
Berenger,
1771: Ural. middling size, roundish and short, big heads, ewe-necked and of a
bluish grey colour (S). [2]
Peter
Pallas, 1771: Free-roaming horses at eastern Russia and western Siberia. Considered
them feral domestic horses. Resembled Russian farm horses, but they had thicker
heads, pinned ears, short and frizzy manes and shorter tails. They were of a greyish
brown colour and had lighter coloured legs, brown and greys would appear. The
colour of the head was white/light on the snout and black towards mouth. Black
horses were rare, and there were no piebald ones. They lived in herds of 20
individuals. (S) [1,2]
Kajetan
Kozmian, 1783: Wild horses at Zamosc: small, strong limbs, enormous strength
and uniform dark mouse colour (S). [1]
C. H.
Smith, 1841: (Probable) Wild horses in the Russian steppe: “coupled with different proportions and position of the ears, an arched
or plane forhead, a straight or curved nose, a difference of colour in the
eyes, of the skin, of the hoofs, the constancy of their liveries, of their
marks, in a streak along the back and bars on the limbs, of dappled croups and
shoulders, or of dark uniform colours, dense or thin manes and tails, although
traits now mixed,” […] “All seem to
refer to a sturdy form of mountain-forest ponies, still found in the province
of Cordova, in the Pyrenees, the Vogesian range, the Camargue, the Ardennes,
Great Britain, and in the Scandinavian highlands: all remarkable for an
intelligent but malicious character, broad forheads, strong lower jaws, heavy
manes, great forelocks, long bushy tails, robust bodies, and strong limbs; with
a livery in general pale dun, yellowish brown and a streak along the spine and
cross bars on the limbs, or the limbs entirely black, as well as all the long
hair and mostly having a tendency to ashy and gray, often dappled on the
quarter and shoulders”. […]“These
horses are evidently again referred to by Andr. Schneebergius, who states, that
“there were wild horses in the preserves of the prince of Prussia, resembling
the domestic, but mouse-coloured, with a dark streak on the spine, and the mane
and tail dark;” […] “Real Tarpans are
not larger than ordinary mules, their colour variably tan, Isabella or mouse,
being all shades of the same livery, and only varying in depth by the growth or
decrease of a whitish surcoat, longer than the hair, increasing from midsummer
and shedding in May: during the cold season it is long, heavy, and soft, lying
so close as to feel like a bear’s fur, and then is entirely grizzled; in a
summer much falls away, leaving only a certain quantity on the back and loins:
the head is small, the forehead greatly arched, the ears far back, either long
or short, the eyes small and malignant, the chin and muzzle beset with
bristles, the neck rather thin, crested with a thick rugged mane, which, like
the tail, is black, also the pasterns, which are long: the hoofs are narrow,
high and rather pointed; the tail, descending only to the hocks, is furnished
with coarse and rather curly or wavy hairs close up to the crupper; the croup
as high as the withers: the voice of the Tarpan is loud, and shriller than that
of a domestic horse; and their action, standing, and general appearance,
resembles somewhat that of vicious mules.” (P) [3]
C. R.
Darwin, 1868: “It seems that not very
long ago a wild breed of dun coloured horses with a spinal stripe was preserved
in the royal parks in Prussia. I hear from Hungary that the inhabitants of that
country look at the duns with a spinal stripe as the original stock, and so it
is in Norway”. (P) [2]
Heptner, 1989:
Last living Tarpan (Dubrowka Tarpan), died 1918. It was 140-145 cm tall, had a
large head, small ears, short neck, mouse-coloured coat, broad dorsal stripe, faint
shoulder stripes, black mane, tail and lower legs, semi-erect mane, broad and
arched front head and a straight head profile. (S) [4]
What is
going to follow now is my personal interpretation of these contemporaneous
descriptions of the wild Equus ferus
ferus. If anyone knows further sources, I’d be grateful if it was pointed
out to me, I want this list to be as complete as possible.
It seems
that some features are consistent over all the reports, such as the large and
thick head, strong and sturdy body, dun coat colour, short manes and tails, and
pinned ears. Except the description of the last captive Tarpan, all the texts
describe the wild horses as small compared to domestic horses. The exceptional
size of the Dubrowka Tarpan can be interpreted as sign of intermixing with
domestic horses, yet all the other features are consistent with the animals of
other reports. The ears are either described being smaller or larger than in
domestic horses, I don’t know which is more likely to be correct. I think that
the notion of the ears hanging down refers to the ears being clapped towards
the rear as an agonistic gesture. I suppose that “the difference of colour in
the eyes” written by Smith is a comparison with the less-pigmented irises of
some domestic horses.
There is
some controversy in the literature whether western wild horses had an upright,
standing mane like the Przewalski and other wild equines or a falling mane like
domestic horses. As far as my interpretation goes, there is no clear reason to
assume the former is the case. “Short mane” does not necessarily imply a
standing mane as there are horses having a short but falling mane, and “short
but frizzy” definitely implies a mane like in, f.e., Exmoor ponies to me.
Sometimes the manes of these horses are short enough to be semi-erect. The
comparison with mules by Smith and the description by Heptner implies such a
mane as well. The wild horses seemingly had a shorter tail, and interestingly
some of the semi-feral Koniks in the Oostvaardersplassen have comparably short
tail hair as well. The notion of a beard for the stallions in the Zamosc
population fits the fact that Przewalski’s horses and other horses with a long
and dense winter coat have a “beard” too (longer hair on the underside of the
lower jaw), but in both sexes. I think it was present in both sexes of the
European wild populations too, but perhaps the author didn’t recognize it or
was misinformed.
Charles
Hamilton Smith reports of free-ranging mountain-forest ponies with heavy manes,
forelocks and tails that seemingly had been around in western Europe and
Scandinavia back this time. I don’t know what to make out of that, because the
widely held opinion is that wild horses died out centuries earlier before they
ceased in Eastern Europe during the 19th century, yet these ponies
apparently were contemporaneous with the last (and mixed) Tarpan populations. I
would suggest they were feral animals, but their wild-type colours seem to
suggest otherwise.
The colour
is almost consistently reported as dun, which is indicated by the more or less
light colour, dark legs and the broad dorsal stripe. The seemingly rare and
locally limited presence of other colours like grey or white legs suggest
domestic influence in some herds. The colour of the horses Pallas had seen
makes me think that he did in fact see feral horses (or hybrids) like he
suspected, although the rest of their morphology resembles wild horses. Terms
like “donky-coloured”, “ashy” or “greyish” and probably also “blue” definitely
indicate grulla/black dun to me, as much as dark mouse-colour. As you might
know, there are various shades of grulla, and I think the horses linked below
might come pretty close to the colour of the black dun horses witnessed by
those authors (unless stated otherwise, all of those photos show Koniks):
Vyatka horse, looks pretty wild horse-like to me |
“Blackish
brown”, used by Haquet for the colour of the horses of Zamosc, could be
interpreted as the sooty brown colour of ponies like the Exmoor, but since the
mealy mouth and white belly are not mentioned (a pretty apparent detail that
probably would not be ignored) and the reports of other authors implicate
shades of grulla in this population, I think Haquet saw grulla horses that
looked like the darker ones above. Bay duns were seemingly – and not
surprisingly – present in the wild populations as well. “yellowish brown”, used
by Smith for some of those western forest ponies, definitely indicates bay dun
to me. Tan probably also refers to bay dun, but could be grulla as well.
Isabella would be an indicator of domestic horse introgression if the authors
indeed referred to its modern meaning in horse colour terminology. But it could
mean bay dun as well (cite from that post): “The tan or isabelline colour described by
Rozdzynski does not necessarily imply what modern terminology identifies as
“Isabella”, it could have been bay dun or even black dun as well, historic
horse colour terminology was not as strict as it is today (there are some
confusions even today, f.e. the British often call dun “cream”, which is a
different gene).” The only author possibly describing a white muzzle
is Gmelin. The white muzzle is part of the pangare condition, where the ventral
side of the body is of a light colour. This feature can be present in both bay
dun and black dun horses, but the white hair around the mouth in the latter is
shed after some months so that the snout gets dark in adult grulla horses (photo of a black dun Sorraia foal with mealy mouth, photo by Lynne Gerard),
therefore Gmelin’s notion implicates that some of the horses he saw were bay
dun. Some grulla horses, Koniks for example, do show a lightly coloured belly
too, what Gmelin obviously referred to (“ashy at the base”). Because of the
lack of notion on the mealy mouth in all other sources I suppose that this
feature was not common among bay dun wild horses (and absent in the grulla ones
anyway). I think this Dartmoor pony I photographed at the Dartmoor National
Park might be a good model for the colour of those European wild horses that
where bay dun, also because of its tone:
Although the alleles for both bay and black have both
been identified in European wild horses (the dun factor, which acts upon these
alleles, was not evaluated yet) there is an interesting discrepancy between
historic and genetic data: the bay allele predominant in the predomestic
samples of the genetic studies [5,6], and considering that the black allele is
recessive, grulla horses must have been quite rare compared to their bay dun
conspecifics – yet it seems that the majority of the wild horses described in
historic sources are probably of a grulla colour. I think there are two
possible explanations for that: 1) the black allele is a mutation that turned
up in the early Copper age [2] and since that constantly spread all over Europe
[5,6], implying that it had a selective advantage over the bay allele. Perhaps
the selection process was that far in the second millennium after Christ that
the grulla horses started to outnumber the bay dun ones. 2) There might have
been at least one genetic bottleneck which coincidently increased the frequency
of the black allele. I admit that this is speculative.
The “surcoat” Smith describes obviously is the winter
coat of the horses. The winter fur is, as far as I know, always lighter than
the summer coat, and Smith’s notion that the Tarpani have white hair during
winter is in accordance with Przewalski horses, whose colour gets very light in
the cold season as well.
Literature
[1] Tadeusz Jezierski, Zbigniew Jaworski: Das Polnische Konik. 2008. Polish Academy of Sciences
[3] Charles
Hamilton Smith, 1841: The Natural History
of horses, with Memoir of Gesner
[4] Hardy Oelke:
Wild horses then and now.
Kierdorf-Verlag.
[5] Ludwig et al.
2009: Coat color variation at the
beginning of horse domestication
[6] Pruvost et al.
2011: Genotypes of predomestic horses
match phenotypes painted in paleolithic works of cave art
Thankyou
ReplyDeleteBased on the horses at the local zoo I think the pangaré traits seem to be sensitive to temperature. The brown parts are the ones where the bone is right under the skin. In winter the difference is bigger with a sharp border between brown and white, because the brown parts are browner, and the legs are blacker. Here is a film about Przewalski’s in China where the seasonal differences can be observed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg2tVKvKp1A.
ReplyDeletethis site has different interesting references :
ReplyDeletehttp://www.soscaballolosino.com/La%20encebra.html
"La última vez en que se encuentran citadas las encebras es en las Relaciones de Felipe II, concretamente en la correspondiente a Chinchilla (Albacete) realizada en 1576. Es la más interesante ya que en ella sus delegados las describen así:
""una especie de salvagina ovo en nuestra tierra que no la a avido en toda Espanna, sino aquí, que fueron encebras que abía muchas y tantas que destruyan los panes y sembrados; son a manera de yeguas cenizosas, de color de pelo de rrata, un poco mohinas, que relinchaban como yeguas, y corrían tanto que no había cavallo que las alcanzase y para aventarlas de los panes los sennores dellos se ponían en paradas con caballos y galgos, que otros perros no las podían alcanzar y desta manera las aventaban, que matar no podían por su ligereza"" (Valdevira González Gregorio. La Provincia de Albacete durante el reinado de Felipe II, según las “Relaciones Topográficas”, Al-Basit, 1996)"
Thank you for this not only interesting but poignant compilation. I am not sure what you mean by "pinned ears", do you in fact mean"pointed"? (normally "pinned ears" in English means flattened against the neck in an aggressive mood)
ReplyDeleteThe camouflage potential of the dark dun colour in a forest environment is well shown in the top photo.
About horses:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rewildingeurope.com/wild-horse-rewilding-programme/
http://www.rewildingeurope.com/news/rewilding-horses-in-europe-why-how-which-and-where/
http://www.rewildingeurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rewilding-horses-in-Europe-2014.pdf