Equus ferus ferus | |
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Subgenus: | Equus
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Subspecies: | E. f. ferus
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Equus ferus ferus Boddaert, 1785
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Equus ferus ferus is a subspecies of Equus ferus, the wild equine species that may be most closely related to the horse, Equus caballus. This subspecies is based on a holotype consisting of a brief written description.
Although Equus ferus ferus often is used as the scientific name of the tarpan, a putative wild ancestor of the domesticated horse, this is a matter of long dispute (see Tarpan).
Taxonomy
During his 1733 to 1743 expedition, Johann Georg Gmelin observed a band of equines near Bobrowsk (Voronezh),[1] and published a description of them in his reports. Gmelin's description was used as the holotype of two scientific names. In 1785 Pieter Boddaert published the name Equus ferus[2] and in 1912, unaware of Boddaert's publication, Otto Antonius published the name Equus gmelini. Because both names are based on the same holotype, the second name is a junior objective synonym of the first.
Some taxonomists expand the circumscription of Equus ferus to include Przewalski's horse, treating the original taxon (i.e., Gmelin's description and Boddaert's Equus ferus) as a subspecies, Equus ferus ferus.
Some taxonomists treat Equus ferus ferus, Przewalski's horse, and the domesticated horses as three subspecies of one species. Although the scientific name of the domesticated horse, Equus caballus, was published before Equus ferus, Equus ferus is the correct name to use for a species with this circumscription. It is the correct name to use because the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has conserved it.[3] Taxonomists who consider the domestic horse to belong to the same species as the animal described by Gmelin therefore use Equus ferus caballus, and taxonomists who consider the domestic horse to be a separate species use Equus caballus.[3]
Description
Gmelin's description has been translated multiple times, and the resulting descriptions are not entirely consistent with each other. James Cossar Ewart, who was among the first to document breeding back a tarpan or tarpan-like animal, renders Johann Georg Gmelin's description as follows:[1]
[M]ouse-coloured, with a short, crisp mane; the tail always shorter than in domestic horses, sometimes full, sometimes only furnished with short hair; the legs dark from the knees and hocks to the hoofs; and the head thick, with the ears sometimes long, sometimes short.
Gmelin's nephew
Johann Georg Gmelin died in 1755. Decades after his observation of wild horses near Voronezh, his nephew Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin also went on an expedition to Russia and published his own report including a mention of wild horses.[4] Translated from German into Russian by Poliakof and from Russian into English by E Delmar Morgan, it is as follows:[5]
[T]he largest of the wild horses is scarcely to be compared for size with the smallest of domesticated breeds; the head is very large in proportion to the rest of the body; the ears are pointed, and either of the same size as those of the domesticated animal, or long and pendulous like those of the ass; the eyes are fiery, the mane very short and curly, the tail in some instances thick, in others scanty, and always shorter than in the domestic animal; the colour is invariably that of the mouse, with an ashy shade underneath the belly, whilst the legs, from the knee downwards, are black; the coat is long and thick, more like fur to the touch than horsehair.
This description is rendered slightly differently by a later author:[6]
near Voronesh ... "hardly as large as the smallest Russian" [pony]; they had very thick heads, pointed ears, short frizzly mane, and "tail-hair shorter" than in domestic horses (perhaps referring to short hair on the dock?). They were mouse-colored, with white or ashy-grey belly, and the limbs black from the knees and hocks down. Their hair was very long and thick. Gmelin and the peasants assisting him killed a stallion and two mares, together with a Russian mare that had run wild with the herd, and captured the hybrid she had produced as well as a purebred foal.
References
- ^ a b J. C. Ewart (1906). "The tarpan and its relationship with wild and domestic horses". Nature. 74: 113–115.
- ^ Pieter Boddaert (1785). Elenchus animalium. Hake.
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suggested) (help) - ^ a b International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (2003). "Opinion 2027 (Case 3010). "Usage of 17 specific names based on wild species which are pre-dated by or contemporary with those based on domestic animals (Lepidoptera, Osteichthyes, Mammalia): conserved."". Bulletin of Zoologic Nomenclature. 60: 81–84.
- ^ Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (1774). Reise durch Russland in den Jahren 1768 und 1769. Vol. 1. p. 44.
- ^ M. Poliakof (1881). "Supposed new species of horse from central Asia". The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 5. 8 (43): 16–26.
- ^ Colin P. Groves (1994). "Morphology, habitat, and taxonomy". In Lee Boyd and Katherine A. Houpt (ed.). Przewalski's horse: The history and biology of an endangered species. SUNY Press. p. 50. ISBN 0791418898.