This is my
200th post. I have been blogging for two and a half years now, it has
been a lot of fun doing research, “field trips” and artworks for this blog. I
thought it was time to do a little retrospect on what I have published here so
far to give you an overview, also for readers that have not been following my
blog for so long but might be interested in some older articles.
I actually
intended to read and correct form and language, but unfortunately I don’t have
the time to do it thoroughly. Many of the pictures used in the posts became not
displayed at some point due to either a change of html or errors by blogger.
It’s annoying and I was not able nor had I the time to restore all of them. I
apologize.
My first
entries in May and June 2013 were rather modest. This post
The various breeding-back efforts provides a quick overview over the most important breeding-back attempts.
However, it should be a bit more comprehensive and I might do a new one one day.
This
article What is breeding-back all about?
introduces what breeding-back is about and what good there is in it. Note that
I used the word phenotype
synonymously with morphology and looks back then, which is imprecise. This term
actually describes everything that is expressed by the genotype and influenced
by environment, and therefore also includes factors such as behaviour.
Most post
on my blog, perhaps up to 80%, are about the aurochs. Not because I am
incredibly obsessed with this animal, but there is much more to write about.
Concerning the European wild horse, I covered everything I have references for
already unless new research delivers new data. Furthermore, there are no
breeding-back projects for this species, and also are not necessary because we
have breeds that already are what we want for the aurochs. For the quagga, I
already gathered and posted all info I have about the quagga itself as much as
the QP, but I keep on looking for new.
I have been
planning to do more species diversification here for long, but I think
everything we can say about the European wild ass and the European water
buffalo is said in my posts already, until new evidence shows up.
Now I am
going to present the most relevant posts per category.
General
articles
A little
article on what I find so fascinating about the whole subject, but also what it
is all about and what good it serves after all.
Why doing breeding-back at all?
A similar themed article.
“Effigy
breed” is an attempt of mine to translate the German Abbildzüchtung as a
neutral term for the result of “breeding-back” (or in this case “effigy
breeding”) that does not acclaim to reconstruct the whole species/wild type. I
am not so happy with that term, which is why I don’t use it that often anymore.
The post is about if there is a relevant difference between the result of a
breeding-back attempt and a primitive landrace.
Quagga
The quagga and the Quagga Project
introduces the quagga and its evolutionary background and systematic position,
as well as the Quagga Project. I go into the project’s methods and in how far
the project’s zebras can resemble the quagga.
A little
personal prognosis in form of a drawing.
A
collection of photos of all 23 preserved quagga skins.
The Quagga Project stud book
plus photos of some beautiful individuals.
New quagga reconstruction, based on the mare at London Zoo
The mare at London Zoo was the only living quagga that was photographed, and I
used GIMP to do a coloured copy as accurate as possible, and I am satisfied
with the result.
In this
entry, I review the argumentation of the quagga project and give my personal
opinion, i.e. that the quagga cannot be revived this way and that their zebras
should be called “Rau zebras” instead of “Rau quaggas”.
This post
presents a very time-consuming illustration of the coat colour variation within
the preserved skins of quagga individuals.
Wild horse
The name
“Tarpan” is a controversial and ambiguous one, and this post explains why. Nowadays
I try to avoid this problematic term.
What the Tarpan looked like
is a question that is not easy to answer, and I did a few weeks of research for
this post and illustration. It is based on contemporaneous written accounts and
scientific literature including modern genetic research.
The Tarpan that wasn't - the famous “Cherson Tarpan” which was photographed, a stallion of uncertain
identity.
I took the
effort to type all passages C.H. Smith wrote in his The Natural History of horses, with Memoir of Gesner (1841), with a
short conclusion.
Where European wild horses dun-coloured or not?
Another question that I approached by researching contemporaneous literature
and modern genetic research. Recent publications might provide a little update
– post upcoming.
This post
is on the Pleistocene wild horse skeleton from Denmark, and I compared its
skull to that of other horses and found that its skeleton seems to be identical
to that of a Przewalski’s horse, not so much that of a Sorraia. The pictures in
that post are gone, unfortunately.
Western wild horse exterieurs: What does the evidence actually say?
A collection of contemporaneous reports.
An
arbitrary collection of horse breeds that I considered tarpan-like back then.
The Konik is not a breeding-back result
I give a bit background info on the origin of the Konik, which is in fact not
the result of a breeding-back project in the usual sense.
Defending the Konik against an unfair critique
Title says everything. I don’t say that I have the truth in this entry, but
just present the references I have and what extrapolations I made.
An
introduction to the Heck horse, which amalgamates more and more with the Konik
in Germany at least.
Ideal horses for rewilding - Exmoor, Konik or Pzrewalski? My personal take-on to that subject.
A
collection of British ponies that I considered primitive back then, with some
genetic and historic info.
Exmoor vs. Konik - which one is better?
My opinion on that debate.
The Sorraia - is it a wild/ancient horse?
In this entry, I took the arguments that Sorraia advocates use to give it a
wild horse status and confront it with data from genetic studies, bone material
and the breeds’ history, and draw my own conclusion on the nature of the
Sorraia horse.
I checked
my statement that the skulls of Sorraia horses are slim instead of robustly
built by having a look at the Denmark skull and comparing it with some Sorraia
heads. I came to the conclusion that the difference is not that big.
Subsequently,
I did the same with the skulls of these three horses. The Exmoor and Konik
skulls in this very small sample turned out to be quite alike.
Back then,
the history of the Exmoor pony, especially as it is portrayed in Susan Baker’s
book, made me presume that there was a kind of “British primitive horse”, a
type or population of feral, primitive ponies that were once widespread in
Great Britain and formed the base of most British pony landraces. The Exmoor
pony would be the least diluted one, but is rather inbreed, so I suggested to
build up a second gene pool using land ponies bred to resemble it.
Is the Exmoor less special than we used to think?
A very interesting, down to earth publication from a few years ago put that
“British primitive horse” idea strongly into question, and the Exmoor pony is
seemingly not that special as we used to think.
Domestication,
dedomestication and feral animals
http://breedingback.blogspot.co.at/2013/06/the-surviving-capacity-of-horses-and.html
A general
post, that covers a number of feral horse and cattle populations to show that
not only primitive landraces but also surprisingly derived domestic animals can
feralize easily.
The
dedomestication series:
I did a lot
research on pleiotropic effects, developtmental cascades and endocrinological
processes that might be related to domestication and the morphological changes
that it causes, mainly inspired by the Farm fox experiment. I also had a look
at feral populations of several species, especially the OVP Heck cattle, which
I used as a model. With all that, I developed a concept on dedomestication and
what implications it might have for breeding back. This concept, however, is on
empirically weak grounds, also because dedomestication is an under-studied,
neglected subject.
Markus
Bühler corrected me on some things I wrote about feral pigs in my DeDo-series.
Piebald deer are
interesting because they seemingly show the same mutations that cause the same
piebald patterns in domestic mammals.
Domestication can change diet in mammals presents a paper that found that dogs differ from wolves in a number of genes
involved in starch digestion and fat metabolism. Whether this is really caused
by artificial selection or if dogs might inherited that traits from wild
ancestors that differed from wolves already is a question treated in a separate
post on dog domestication.
Aurochs horns at Oostvaardersplassen
shows photos of Heck cattle at OVP that display an aurochs-like horn shape with
an inwards-curve more strongly and elegantly expressed than in any Heck cattle
outside the reserve. If it is a real trend, it is probably due to selective
pressure for mechanically useful horns in intraspecific combats. Interestingly,
only cows have truly inwards-curving horns yet it seems.
Cloning
The
extremely low genetic diversity in the gene pool of the wisent is a
life-threatening danger for the whole species. In this entry I suggest that
cloning ancient wisent from ancient DNA would greatly increase the genetic
diversity and therefore greatly improve the health of the species.
Other
species
A slightly
grumpy review of the DVD-version of “De nieuwe wildernis”, a documentary film
of Oostvaardersplassen.
The Tamaskan dog as a test for "breeding-back"Actually, the Tamaskan dog is rather similar to breeding-back attempts.
Hybridization
is damned in species conservation, while over-purebreeding is enhancing inbreeding
depression. In this article, I defend the Wisent population in the Caucasus and
suggest to set up a third breeding like for wisents with controlled, planned
American bison introgression. Also I propose that additional research should be
done.
I consider
the Wisent population in the Caucasus an important one, and you can donate for
them on the link I provide in this post.
Is the wolf a domesticated dog or something different?
I did some research on dog domestication, and the origin of the domestic dog
might differ a little from the traditional scenario. It was one of those
article that were fun to do because I had to dig through a lot of literature
and it became rather long.
This post
includes everything that I can say about Bubalus
murrensis.
And this
post includes everything that I can say about Equus hydruntinus.
Some colour
morphs within the modern Plains zebra population.
Aurochs
Just for
starters.
A little
post on the aurochs’ head morphology.
Forelocks and manes
were another characteristic trait of the aurochs’ head.
I did reconstructions
of 22 aurochs horn pairs based on fossil/subfossil skulls.
Female aurochs remastered My reconstruction of the Sassenberg cow that I consider most accurate.
In 2015 I
asked paleoartist Joschua Knüppe to do an aurochs reconstruction because there
is so few correct aurochs art: Aurochs bull by Joschua Knüppe
This is my
most recent reconstruction of that enigmatic subspecies. I list what we know of
the Indian aurochs and what I deduce for its life appearance.
My first
reconstruction of B.p. indicus, and
if a “breeding-back” project with zebu could be done.
A photo of
a primitive-looking zebu cow from Sri Lanka provided by Jochen Ackermann; today
I think it could be the result of taurine influence just as well.
I tried to
develop a simple way to objectively score cattle breeds for their resemblance
to the aurochs, which is rather tricky.
An article
that became surprisingly popular (4500 clicks), with a conclusion that I still
agree with.
A table of
Heck cattle’s founding breeds, under the assumption that none of Lutz Hecks’
Berlin stock were included.
In 2013 I
met with Walter Frisch, the creator of the Wörth/Steinberg line (Heck cattle
special for sometimes superb horns and comparably stable) and took a look at
his herd. It was very nice, and the post includes a lot of photos.
A short
list of aurochs-like cattle that is surely not complete.
History lesson pt.I: Please stop claiming Heck cattle was bred using the Spanish fighting bull ... under the assumption that none of Lutz Hecks' Berlin stock contributed to the population post 1945.
Taurus cattle in Hungary are an interesting but unfortunately less accessible population to me.
Visiting Taurus cattle at Lippeaue, Germany. My firt trip to the Lippeaue.
The skulls of two Taurus bulls I own the skulls of two Taurus bulls, and for this post I did a lot of anatomical comparing with aurochs skulls. Also with informative photos.
Genealogy of some Lippeaue cattle More to come.
Aurochs-like Italian cattle are somewhat overlooked.
The social and reproductive behaviour of cattle and horses are a really interesting subject!
Inbreeding as an option to fixate aurochs traits? I elaborated an inbreeding-based breeding method to create a genetically homogeneous, as aurochs like as possible line to improve other herds.
Hairless bison, yak and fluffy aurochs Just some anatomical sketches to better compare the morphology of those four species.
Congrats! Your next assignment: high time to write something about the repurcussions of the completed aurochs-genome. For instance in the summary I read something about modern british and irish breeds having more in common with the aurochs than other breeds.
ReplyDeleteThat article is on its way, might need one or two days more to finish it. ;-)
DeleteThanks for your great work!
ReplyDeleteQuite agree, fascinating blog, and one I return to regularly. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI think I have read most of your 200 articles. Thanks a lot for the work you put into this blog.
ReplyDelete