Talk:Wild horse

Comment

The Przewalski is not merely a feral horse; the American Museum of Natural History reports that, unlike domesticated horse breeds which have 64 chromosomes, the wild horse has 66 chromosomes. However, the offspring of Przewalski and common horses are fertile, possessing 65 chromosomes. Are there sources for this? In general, in biology, uneven number of chromosomes provide serious problems for reproduction, so there is a need for good sourcing of this alternative. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I found this. --Merovingian {T C @} 02:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Some authorities feel strongly that the Przewalski horse is the ancestor of all modern breeds. Others point out that it is a different species from the domesticated horse, having 66 chromosomes as compared to the 64 of the domestic horse. They further point out that while crosses between the Przewalski and domestic horses result in a fertile hybrid, the offspring has 65 chromosomes. Subsequent crosses result in 64 chromosomes and bear little resemblance to the Przewalski.

I always thought this was common knowledge, although I checked google and found this source: http://biobulletin.amnh.org/D/2/3/index.html

the takhi is the only true wild horse left in the world. These dun-colored, black-maned equids have not been domesticated, and they remain genetically distinct from the common (domestic) horse. The takhi has 66 chromosomes instead of the common horse's 64. Because of this genetic distinction, some scientists recognize the takhi as a separate species from Equus caballus, rather than a closely-related subspecies. However, when the common horse and the takhi are cross-bred, the first-generation offspring have 65 chromosomes and are fertile. Harkenbane 03:01, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I went by my general biology knowledge, which is not always accurate on all details (there are to many). So, what about inserting Crosses between the Przewalski horse and domesticated horses are fertile, despite the difference in the number of chromosomes; Przewalski horse have 66, and domesticated horses have 64 chromosones resulting in offspring with 65 chromosomes

--Bademe (talk) 06:55, 25 February 2017 (UTC) I am a lay person, but wouldn't it make sense to indicate the number of chromosomes of Equus ferus ferus / Tarpan, which I was not able to find. Does anybody know what is the answer? IMHO, it would give a better perspective to gain a better understanding of the relationship between E. ferus przewalskii and E. f. caballus.

What do you think? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. We seem to have substantiated this claim. --Merovingian {T C @} 04:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

In that case, we can move it to the article. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Given the multiple spelling errors in the new edit, I reinstated the original edit, minus the mention of the American Museum of Natural History; the substantiation was better as a clickable reference. Harkenbane 18:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

One! The first sentence of your version seems funcky, that is why I wrote the above version. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

How can a description of the differing number of chromosomes between wild and domestic horses be followed by a comment like this: "Nowadays we know that the wild horse and domestic horse belong to the same species...."? I understand that the taxonomy is debated, so such a statement is out of keeping with the rest of the article, and particularly jarring when it immediately follows what I would think to be quite good evidence that wild and domestic horses are not the same species. Edalton 17:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Someone just needs to look at the source of the debate, explain it, cite it and if it's done properly, both sides explained fairly, then all will be well. Unfortunately, yours truly is not one with time to do so...Montanabw 17:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I see a source for the chromosome numbers has been added. Most scientists do now see the wild/domestic horse and the przewalski as the same species. The "chromosome" source also says why they are: "If parents can produce fertile offspring, according to systematic convention, it usually indicates that they do not belong to different species. Another factor suggesting that the takhi might be a subspecies of Equus caballus is that if a first-generation horse-takhi hybrid is bred with a horse, the second-generation offspring have only 64 chromosomes and bear little resemblance to the takhi ancestor." The domestic horse has certainly some Przewalki blood in it, at least some breeds, like the Heck horse. Peter Maas 14:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Lead

There's some good writing here... A way to further improve the article would be to improve the lead section, which per WP:LEAD should contain a summary of the rest of the article, rather than having too much "new" information that isn't covered elsewhere in the article. --Elonka 22:31, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. However, feel free to go for it if you want, this particular article is about 1000 on the WPEQ list! It may be awhile until the regular gang gets to it. LOL!

Cleanup

As other editors have noted on this talk page, this article is about the species Equus ferus. However, it contains unrelated content about a horse breed selected to look like extinct members of this species, and about feral horses. This article probably should be made into a disambiguation page, and its various contents dispersed among other articles. --Una Smith (talk) 08:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That is PRECISELY why this article exists. Younger students want to learn about "wild horses," but don't really understand what they are. This article discusses ALL the colloquial uses. IT isn't a scientifically-oriented article the way Przewalski's horse is, for example. The POINT is that it should explain what is and is not a "wild" horse. It isn't a perfect article, but it needs to exist because if it doesn't someone is going to come in and recreate it anyway. To make it just a disambiguation page fails to understand the level of reader at which an article like this is directed. Sure it can be improved, but it needs to exist. Montanabw^(talk) 19:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Wel at first I was for the creation of such a page, but not anymore. The feral horse part in the article is small and indeed an explanation that can remain here as many people think they are wild horses. And that part refers to the main article on feral horses. As well does the comment at the top of this article. The same comment does mention that there already is an disambiguation page, namely Wild Horses. I think with a cleanup and adding more information (for example on the extinct Pleistocene subspecies, etc.), it can remain to be about the species Wild horse or Equus ferus. And I think it SHOULD be scientifically-oriented article, only with a small part on feral horse included. Peter Maas\^talk 21:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have some flexibility on the issue. All I really know is that every fourth grader looking for info on Mustangs is going to search for "wild horse," so I want to help our younger wikipedians and also minimize a lot of "tee hee" kids edits to the page. Of course, the extinct subspecies were ALL "wild" as in fact, as after all, I don't think that our human ancestors really had ANYTHING domesticated yet! LOL! As long as we have good faith editing and consensus on anything really big, I am groovy with Pmaas' general proposal, as long as we aren't duplicating content in evolution of the horse, equidae and equus (genus). Montanabw^(talk) 22:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, there need indeed to be consensus on anything really big. And I think this is the place to discuss major edits before actually changing the article. And I agree that we should not duplicating content or create confliction information between the Equine related articles. At the moment I have no good suggestions on how to improve this article exactly. As to me the whole taxonomic status of the Equus ferus subspecies is confusing. Even the scientific papers are not on the same line. At the moment I'm doing research on this for my own website [1] for a major update on its page on the Tarpan, and I can say to you it gives me a headache. At the moment I don't have the time to do major work on my own website as well on Wikipedia. Maybe in the near future. Peter Maas\^talk 22:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

What I propose is this:

• Move the content about Equus ferus to a more taxonomic article, in line with many other articles listed on Template:Equus, at the page name Equus ferus.
• Merge the content about "wild" horses meaning feral horses into Feral horse.
• Move the disambiguation (dab) page now at Wild Horses here, and expand it further.
• Make Wild Horses a redirect to the dab page, similar to A Streetcar Named Desire (film) and A Streetcar Named Desire.

--Una Smith (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I oppose this. This article IS the taxonomic article and if anything, that part should be expanded. If the lead makes clear that wild horse (lower case) is used to indicate feral horses and some efforts to breed back wild-type horses, that should be enough is we make clear links to that. Those sections can then be removed to their respectively pages. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Kim, I agree with you that the content on Equus ferus needs to be expanded. I think we disagree only about the page name of the article about Equus ferus. You want the article to remain at Wild horse; I want the article to be at Equus ferus and to make Wild horse a disambiguation page. That would address Montanabw's concerns stated earlier on this talk page about readers seeking information about "wild horses" meaning mustangs and other feral horses. --Una Smith (talk) 17:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

We can solve the issue of what people are looking for easily by devoting one clear paragraph in the lead to this. The current explanation is not clear and adds a lot of weight to all kind of extinct species. I will have stab at it later. Most non-equine Wild HorseS disambig entries are plural to start with, so to bring them to a singular page is just more confusing. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I would vote for the move to the namespace Equus ferus and changing "Wild horse" into a disambiguation page.--Kevmin (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

It appears we all agree that anything and everything called "wild horse" is not an encyclopedic topic. Correct? --Una Smith (talk) 18:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think we should steer clear from a very broad Wild horse article, as it includes many things that are called wild horses in vernacular, but are not really wild horses. In my native language, we actually have a more subtle way of distinguishing between Wild and Rewilded (=Verwilderd; sorry, had to make up a word here = feral) horses, which takes away much of the problem in English. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Just thought I would chime in here. I agree this article should be about Equus ferus as the modern extinct species which is still classifiable as wild. The Section regarding feral horses should be summerized into 1-2 sentances as explanation of the difference, and the section on "other species" not needed at all, its just uncited clutter with one reference on the last line.--Kevmin (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

All I care about is that we somehow direct people who know squat about the wild vs feral thing to the proper articles, everyone looking for stuff on mustangs or brumbies or whatever is going to be starting here. I guess I'm mostly in line with Kim's thinking on this and disfavor making this a disambiguation page. I also think it's completely ludicrous to have a disambig for both Wild Horse and Wild Horses, if this winds up a disambig, then the two may have to be merged to avoid yet more confusion. Montanabw^(talk) 16:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. --Una Smith (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Kim rewrote the lead, and I removed the extraneous content about feral horses and breeding programs to create a horse that resembles Equus ferus ferus. This article could mention that work, but should not go into it in any detail. Now we can see more clearly the extent of the content about this species. --Una Smith (talk) 19:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Kim and I are still working on the lead, especially the (now) second paragraph that distinguishes wild horse in the sense of E. ferus from wild horse in the sense of feral horse. Take a look? --Una Smith (talk) 04:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I feel like it is important to point out that in North America there have been no wild horses for 10,000 years. When the young students that Montanabw points out look up wild horses, they will think that wild horses still live in north America. The mustangs are NOT wild horses. See wikipedia Mustang (horse) and my wife is a wild life scientist. -bendgoman — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bendgoman (talk • contribs) 18:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

No argument here. We probably should explain that in more detail, recently just had a spat at the Mustang article about that issue. What we can benefit from are some good, ideally peer-reviewed journal articles, that explain this -- and also address the "definition of feral" issue (some folks --not me -- argue that feral animals are only first generation, after that they become wild again. ) If you can point us to some good source material to support this, that would be helpful. Montanabw^(talk) 17:26, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Equus ferus vs Equus caballus ferus

On User talk:Tombstone#Wild horse, Tombstone asks a question about Equus ferus vs Equus caballus ferus. I am in favor of Equus ferus because it causes less confusion to distinguish the (mostly extinct) wild horses from the domesticated species, and because their different chromosome counts indicate it is likely that in fact they were different species. Wikipedia already has two articles on subspecies of Equus ferus, Equus ferus ferus and Przewalski's Horse. --Una Smith (talk) 16:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Another factor is that in the case of Equus we are dealing with a group that has many extinct members, so breeding experiments cannot be used to work out the species boundaries. Equus ferus ferus did survive into historical times, but is extinct now, and although crossing Przewalski's Horse and domestic horses can produce fertile hybrids, this can happen also with crosses between horses and asses, which are well accepted as separate species. Finally, in biology the ability of two individuals to produce fertile offspring under ideal experimental conditions is necessary but not sufficient to show that those two individuals are members of the same species. --Una Smith (talk) 16:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Equus caballus ferus is an INVALID name per decision of the ICZN mentioned in the article. The proper Latin name for the Wild Horse is Equus ferus, the proper name for the domesticated horse is either Equus ferus caballus or Equus caballus. as for the species concept to be used here, there are many. Whether the domesticated horse is a subspecies, a hybrid (between several subspecies pof the wild horse), decendents of an extinct subspecies is not yet fully understood. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

BINGO! Kevmin, this is heart of that whole taxonomy dispute I was thinking of but couldn't find back when this whole discussion started at Equidae. I am not getting into the middle of it, but THIS is the thing that has been popping up over and over again for the last two years. Kim AND Kev, It would be nice if someone could actually "teach the controversy" and explain both sides. Montanabw^(talk) 16:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

That is a minor question of taxonomy, best addressed on Horse aka Equus caballus. --Una Smith (talk) 18:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't act so smug Montanabw. Saying this is a controversy is the same as saying there is controversy over where there is evolution or not. There is no controversy! This was decided by the ICZN Equus caballus = The domestic horse, Equus ferus = undomesticated horses (Equus ferus ferus and Equus ferus przewalskii). The reason this keeps popping up is people don't know that the decision is made or are reluctant to change to reflect the decision. however much they don't want it though,it is an official decision that will only change if the ICZN makes a ruling otherwise.--Kevmin (talk)19:01, January 29, 2009

Not sure who posted the unsigned post above, but that was a sincere comment and not in the least smug. I am quite hurt and offended by the tone of the above reply. I made my remarks in good faith, working off of some discussions I had with kevmin on a different article. Maybe the reason all this is a problem is because instead of offering an explanation to those of us who do not have a taxonomy background, one just piles on insults and fails to assume good faith. I am simply saying that many people who aren't scientists wonder what this is all about. A simple explanation here on the talk page would suffice, such as: "ICZN (whatever ICZN is) is the organization that decides what the "official" taxonomy classifications are, and in year XXXX, they changed the classifications to (whatever) and that is still the status today in 2009." THAT is what I mean by "teach the controversy." Call it "make it understandable for the intelligent non-expert; this is an encyclopedia." Montanabw^(talk) 00:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Im sorry, I apologize for the missed sig. The reason I posted with the tone I used was that from looking through the various taxo. related discussions that have taken place in the Equine articles you have brought up this same point as something which was a major debate in the scientific world. The thing is the decision by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) settled the issue 8 years ago in 2002. The question sill comes up when editors who are not familiar with the ICZN come across the old terms, such as Equus caballus ferus in pre-2002 texts. Yes this should be addressed in both the E. f. ferus and E. caballus articles, but calling it a controversy is not appropriate or correct.--Kevmin (talk) 01:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm getting there. Some earlier debates DID sound like it was a major debate, and if it was just the usual "wikispats" that arise (and I hear you on the evolution issue), that helps to clarify things. See, 2002 in general horse encyclopedia land is "recent" not "years ago." Very few books on horses touch on this at all, and most just say equus caballus and leave it at that. So maybe it is not a "controversy" in the real world scientific community sense, but there has definitely been confusion on wiki. However, the rephrased language in this article that explains it is making the issue clearer. I must admit, though, that it kind of sounds like the next time the political winds of the taxonomy world shift, it will be something else again? Montanabw^(talk) 05:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

No worries about the taxonomic world. The ICZN is very conservative and they have reconfirmed their decision recently by adding a few more species to the list that have been overlooked in the original decision. It takes a hell of a lot of effort to get something changed like this. Not likely to be overturned soon. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Text from Horse

Below is text from Horse, to be merged into this article and/or article on the two subspecies. --Una Smith (talk) 07:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

A truly wild horse is a species or subspecies which has no ancestors that were ever domesticated. Therefore, most "wild" horses today are actually feral horses, animals that escaped or were turned loose from domestic herds and the descendants of those animals.

Only two types of truly wild horses survived into recorded history. One, the Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus) survived into the historical era, but became extinct in 1887. Its pure genetic line was lost, but three attempts have been made to re-create the Tarpan. In the early 1930s, Berlin Zoo Director Lutz Heck and Heinz Heck of the Munich Zoo began a program that by the 1960s produced the Heck horse. In 1936, Polish university professor Tadeusz Vetulani began a program using Konik horses, and in the mid-1960s Harry Hegard started a program in the United States using feral mustangs and local working ranch horses that has resulted in the Hegardt or Stroebel's Horse. None of the breeding programs were completely successful, although all three resulted in horses with many similarities to the Tarpan.

There is only one true wild horse species alive today, the Przewalski's Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii). It is a rare Asian animal, also known as the Mongolian Wild Horse; Mongolian people know it as the taki, and the Kyrgyz people call it a kirtag. Small wild breeding populations of this animal, named after the Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky, exist in Mongolia. There are also small populations maintained at zoos throughout the world. The species was considered extinct in the wild between 1969 and 1992, but a small breeding population was reestablished in the wild due to the conservation efforts of numerous zoos.

References

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was not moved. -- PeterSymonds (talk) 10:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

---

Requested move

• Per prior discussion on this talk page, move Wild horse over Equus ferus, a redirect, in order to make a disambiguation page at Wild horse. --Una Smith (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
• That depends on whether Equus ferus is a genuine biological species or merely a convenient description. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 17:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

  Equus ferus is a valid biological species, no problem there. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The convenient description here is the common name "wild horse", which is ambiguous. Several editors have just finished removing from the article content about feral horses and other topics. --Una Smith (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

And this was done in the face of other editors who have emphasized that many children access this article when looking for info on "wild horses," by which they mean "feral" horses. Montanabw^(talk) 23:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. My take on that is that we should make clear to readers that they actually are looking for the article called feral horse, and direct them there. In my opinion, an encyclopaedia is to provide up to date and correct information about this, and we should avoid to much grouping together of groups that are actually quite different. If it is a problem that people look under the popular name for what they are searching, we have to educate them and direct them to the proper article rather than water down and cater to the ignorance about the topic. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Wild horse is actually clear, it is the popular usage that sows confusion, and that is not sufficient reason to make things more difficult to find with multiple disambig pages etc. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree with Kim on this, but I also think that means we have the short explanation of what feral horses are in the article? The popular usage IS what we are going to run into, over and over again. I definitely agree that multiple diasmbig pages are not a good idea. With all due respect, I am restoring some of the feral horse material because it needs to be here to properly direct young users. Montanabw^(talk) 05:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose. The talk page discussion was anything but conclusive about such a move. There is already a disambig page Wild Horses that covers all cases that use the plural as well as the singular use entries. Wild horse is the proper name for the species, and unless there are overriding arguments to change that, it should remain under that name. The vernacular use of "wild horse" to indicate feral horses is not such a argument, to the contrary, catering to that notion would endorse the usage of wild horse for feral horses which is incorrect. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• A WP:RM proposal such as this is the established method of dealing with controversial page moves. --Una Smith (talk) 18:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support (as nom). The page history, talk page discussion, and related disambiguation pages clearly show that "wild horse" is ambiguous. If this move passes, I will consolidate the disambiguation pages at Wild horse. --Una Smith (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:USEENGLISH. The distinction between wild horses, this species, and feral horses, undomesticated E. caballus, exists to mark the line between those two subjects. Those who wish to write Neo-Latin have a Latin WP in which to do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• From what I Can see after reading WP:USEENGLISH it doesn't even apply to taxonomic articles. Where you need to look is the Tree of Life articles titles section. These are the guidelines which are utilized most in taxonomic articles. --Kevmin (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. This would be the only large mammal with a page at the scientific name; this would create a precedent for people who might argue that, for example, "Asian Elephant" is ambiguous because other elephants have inhabited Asia in the past. I agree with Septentrionalis's citing of WP:USEENGLISH. The page should definitely remain at "Wild horse" or "Wild Horse" (definitely not an argument to go into here). Frickeg (talk) 22:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• Note my comment above, WP:USEENGLISH is not applicable to this case.--Kevmin (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid it is. The page you cite says: "In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles." I think the argument I and other editors are making is that "Wild horse" applies to Equus ferus and "Feral horse" applies to feral examples of Equus caballus. Any ambiguities can easily be addressed by a top-of-the-page disambiguation notice (For other wild horses, see "Feral horse") rather than an entire disambiguation page, which would completely override the conventions of WP:MAMMALS which have been to use common names unless none has been given. In this case one has. Frickeg (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Mammal articles use common names and MSW3 taxonomy (except where recent verifiable research proves otherwise). MSW3 does not consider this a species itself; rather a subspecies of the Horse (Equus caballus), so the trinomial name should be Equus caballus ferus. If the proposed move were to the trinomial name, then I would still oppose, since mammal articles use the common name. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, the ruling of the ICZN mentioned in the article overrules that, and therefore it would be Equus ferus caballus. See http://www.iczn.org/BZNMar2003opinions.htm#opinion2027 -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• I would like to clarify further that only extant or very recently extinct mammals use the common names. The vast majority of extinct taxa, from Eomaia, Fruitafossor to Brontotherium and Smilodon are found at their Scientific names and not even mentioned in MSW3. Speaking of which MSW3 does not list a common name for E. ferus making your point invalid.--Kevmin (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• A 2003 opinion overrules a 2005 publication? And I've been invalidated? Well, it was a nice run. I could continue the drahmaz, but I'm not much interested in the horse articles anyway. I still oppose and I still think the MSW3 taxonomy should be used as it is on the other 5,000+ other mammal articles, but whatever. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 12:14, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The opinion is indeed binding. Most likely, the newer article overlooked the ruling. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose This article is a common search term and as such needs to educate readers about the ambiguity. Wikipedia is for everyone, children, adults, experts, non-experts. Montanabw^(talk) 00:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose This would open a can of worms for requests to move other articles about well-known animals to obscure page titles nobody has ever heard. As long as there is some information about the ambiguity of the phrase in the lead, there is no problem. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 00:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Again and again, User:Una Smith is attempting to change Wikipedia policy to make the most simple title names for articles redirect pages instead. Una Smith has not been able to gain support for a change in the policy about article titles names, so she is implementing her desired scheme for Wikipedia page by disambiguation page. Una Smith needs to discuss her desired policy change and allow the community to weigh in on it and decide via consensus whether or not it is a useful way to go, rather than enacting her desired change without consensus from interested parties. --KP Botany (talk) 02:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
  • So do you have any input related to the actually complex issue here? It seems this vote is based on a personal dislike of one editor and not on the issue of Wild Horse Vs Equus ferus ferus--Kevmin (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I have not mentioned anything about my like or dislike of this editor. Perhaps you meant this comment for some other edit, above? Although I don't, at first glance, see anyone else discussing their like or dislike of this editor, which is not really a talk page issue.

The issue is complex, and it involves not just this page, but Una Smith's attempts to change the policy about titling articles, making it far more complex than it appears to be even here. This is not the place to discuss a particular move, when the move is an attempt to change policy, rather than a specific attempt to deal with the article attached to this talk page.--KP Botany (talk) 07:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - I agree with the notion that the article needs to be at the common name. Wikipedia should not make it hard to find things. For a significant segment of our readership, a dab page will make things needlessly difficult. I do not agree that WP:USEENGLISH does not apply in this case. Wikipedia is a general interest encyclopedia and we need ot keep that in mind. Further, this move would set a bad precedent. I thank Una for at least bringing this for discussion rather than just unilaterally moving things, as is often done, and I agree with KP Botany that this gives the appearance of an end run around policy after failing to get policy changed. I think it unfortunate that we have to have this discussion over and over at various topics, but if we do, so be it. ++Lar: t/c 15:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Uh, what policy did I try to change, and where and when did I do that? --Una Smith (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• Mild opposeComment. Clearly, "wild horse" is ambiguous, because people do use it when they mean "feral horse". But if, as Septentrionalis emphasises, this usage is strictly incorrect, then I have no objection to the strictly correct usage being treated as the primary topic. A hatnote will suffice for other uses.
  I remember a similar discussion over Greenwich University versus University of Greenwich. The former is a little known former degree mill; the latter is a well known current university. Probably the majority of uses of the term "Greenwich University" are incorrect references to the University of Greenwich. Nonetheless the degree mill was retained at that title because it is the only correct referent for that name. Hesperian 10:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

"Wild horse" is used in a US federal act to protect the mustang, to distinguish between protected and unprotected feral horses, and that distinction is widely used. --Una Smith (talk) 17:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Changed to neutral. This dispute boils down to whether Equus ferus warrants being the treated as the primary use of the term. I have no idea. Hesperian 04:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: There are several issues here:
  1. What should be the title of an article whose content is about the wild horse Equus ferus? The Tree of Life guidelines says that the title should be "Wild horse".
  2. What should be the content of an article whose title is "Wild horse"? The WP:COMMONNAME guideline could be interpreted to mean that an article with such a title should talk about feral horses.
  3. When there is a conflict between different guidelines, as may be the case here depending on how WP:COMMONNAME is interpreted, the conflict should be resolved in a way that is useful to readers of the encyclopaedia.
  4. Regardless of the article names, it must be easy for readers who accidentally reach the wrong article to find links to the correct article. —AlanBarrett (talk) 11:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose page move. I suggest leaving the Feral horse article under its current title, leaving the Wild horse article under its current title, leaving the Wild Horses disambiguation page under its current title (with a redirect from the different capitalisation Wild horses), and ensuring that all these articles have sufficient links to enable a reader of one article to find the other articles. —AlanBarrett (talk) 11:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• Comment It's already a redirect/it's now a redirect. I'm cool either way. Spinach Monster (talk) 19:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

(Comment moved here from WP:RM by Una Smith (talk) 17:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC))

support. Scientific name is more accurate an educational. And it completely removes any confusion between the disambigs. Shrumster (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose There are only two uses that are candidates for being the primary use of this name - all other uses are arguably obscure, if they are even actual uses of Wild horse per se. Whether one of these two is actually the primary use doesn't matter, as long as the other, and the dab page, are link in hat notes at the top, which they are. I see no problem that needs solving here, much less one that would be solved by the proposed move. On the other hand, forcing everyone to go through a dab page unnecessarily, is a problem, and one that this proposed move would create. Solving no problems, and creating at least one adds up to an oppose vote for me. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Please explain how the requested move would result in "forcing everyone to go through a dab page". --Una Smith (talk) 02:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Right now users typing in "wild horse" get taken to this article, and odds are pretty good that that will be the article they are searching for. If it is, then they have reached it directly, without having to go through a dab page. For those actually looking for feral horse, they are one hat note click away. With this move, everyone will be taken to a dab page, and then will have to click on whichever meaning they are looking for. Thus, with Wild horse being a dab page, everyone typing in "wild horse" will be forced to go through a dab page before getting to the article they want. Only the minority not looking for this article nor the feral horse will have one extra click. Make sense? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

How do you figure those odds? Based on the Google search hits reported below, the topic of this page per its lead opening sentence (namely, Equus ferus) is a minor topic. --Una Smith (talk) 00:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Here is what the proposed dab page may look like. --Una Smith (talk) 21:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Wild horse can refer to:

• Feral horse, a domestic horse or its offspring living in the wild

• Mustang (horse), protected feral horse in North America

• Equus ferus, a species closely related to Equus caballus (the domestic horse)

• Equus ferus ferus, the Eurasian wild horse or tarpan (now extinct)
• Przewalski's Horse, the Asian wild horse and Mongolian wild horse

• Equus lambei, the Yukon wild horse (now extinct)

See also

• Wild horse (disambiguation)
• Wildhorse (disambiguation)
• Wild Horses (disambiguation)

This is a disaster. Just for one thing, there are at least 16 or 20 "breeds" (for lack of a more precise term) of feral horses, the best-known of which is the Mustang. This article does NOT need to be degraded into a disambig. Montanabw^(talk) 23:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Wild horse is about Equus ferus, not those 16 or 20 feral horse breeds. But I agree with Montanabw that the common name "wild horse" often refer to some kind of feral Equus caballus, not to Equus ferus. On the other hand, "wild horse" is the name WikiProject Mammals would use for Equus ferus. That is why I propose a disambiguation page. --Una Smith (talk) 01:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Whoww, two different disambig pages (two point to the same page) for almost the same word, I think that the two should be merged under Wild horse (disambiguation) per preferred usage of singular in page names. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, they should be consolidated and I will do it. But that does not address the likely chronic mess in the incoming links to Wild horse. I spend a lot of time disambiguating incoming links and it is far less work for everyone when the ambiguous base name (ie Wild horse) is a dab page. --Una Smith (talk) 03:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, if we are here primarily to limit our work, than we should make a lot of different decisions. However, we are here to make what is the best, and if that means fixing a considerable number of incoming links, so be it. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I may need to explain in more detail. If this is old news, please forgive me. Here goes. An ambiguous page name accumulates wrong links. That is the nature of ambiguous page names on Wikipedia.

• Case 1: If it is a dab page, all links except a few special ones will be wrong.
• Case 2: If it is an article, the same wrong links will be mixed in with correct links, often hundreds or thousands of them.

In both cases, the number of links needing to be fixed is exactly the same. In the second case, however, the task of fixing those links is made difficult, as follows. To find the wrong links, it is necessary to sift through additional, correct links. Once all the wrong links are fixed, then what happens? Wikipedia continues to grow and new wrong links accumulate. To fix those, if the page is an article then once again it is necessary to sift through the correct links to find the wrong ones. --Una Smith (talk) 04:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, it is work, but it does not change the argument that the page should be at its most logical place. With your argument, each and every article with can point at various pages should become a disambig page, and I disagree very strongly with that. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Taken to its extreme, yes, my argument goes that far. But I do not take it that far; I seek an optimum, a balance, somewhere between that extreme and other extreme, which is to never put a dab page where an article could go. My rule of thumb is this: if there is a primary topic that is arguably 10x or more notable than the other topics combined, then it should occupy the ambiguous page name. So here the question is which of these is more notable: Equus ferus, or feral horse including Mustang (horse) and Brumby? --Una Smith (talk) 04:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have the impression that you seem to miss the point here. There is only one wild horse species, Equus ferus. The others are maybe called "wild horses" but that is incorrect usage of English, and as such, we have to point readers in the proper direction. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Kim, I agree with your position here. On the disambig issue, Una is doing this disambiguation thing all over multiple wiki subject areas, not just here. (See talk at WP disambiguation). I support keeping this article as an article, not a disambig, and offering a brief, simple explanation of the difference between a wild horse and a feral horse to help properly direct the fourth graders who will all start here. Montanabw^(talk) 05:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Remember, Una argues that every term that has more than one meaning should be a disambiguation page. Regardless of how overwhelmingly prevalent one term is... she thinks London should be a disambiguation page, unless she has changed her mind, because some inbound links might be to the wrong place, (and because it's only 9.9x more likely to be what is wanted?). Until we can disabuse Una of that notion, or get some sort of binding finding she will accept, we are going to have this same discussion over and over at various pages. Fourth graders searching for information on the wild horse, part of our target audience, are likely to be confused by disambiguation pages, especially the one Una proposes, while those of us who end up at the wrong place because of a bad link, as long as that place has a hatnote pointing to the dab page, are not, and may well be motivated to fix the bad inbound. Wikipedia is written for the readers. We should make their work easy, not our own. The need to fix bad links is not itself a compelling argument. ++Lar: t/c 15:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is entirely about Una Smith's unilateral, solo, unconsensus vision for Wikipedia, namely, that no reader will ever arrive at the page they want to read, but will simply arrive at a page of options, and not just the obvious or useful options, look at the Tumbleweed article and the Tumbleweed (disambiguation) pages to see just how far User:Una Smith is willing to ridiculously and single-handedly expand the definition of any organism to prove her singular point about dabs against the consensus of the entire Wikiepdia community. This is nothing but disruptive, pointed editing. It needs to stop. This is why Una Smith's page moves and dab creations should be unilaterally undone (her preferred editing style, so it would be polite to use it), and her suggested page moves should be unilaterally slammed down until she proposes her ~vision for Wikipedia to the entire community to decide whether we want an encyclopedia of dabs or an encyclopedia of articles. --KP Botany (talk) 18:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Although I strongly disagree with Una's general philosophy of disambiguation pages, it astounds me to see KP Botany opposing moving an article to its scientific name. I do think the hatnote does the job nicely, and IMO this article should be Equus ferus with Wild horse redirecting to it.

I notice that wild dog is a dab page, and wild cat, wild pig, and wild goat lead to articles. Canis lupus is a wild dog in the sense that Equus ferus is a wild horse; If wolves were called "wild dogs", we might face a similar issue there.--Curtis Clark (talk) 23:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• Re the question raised by Hesperian of which topic (if any) is the primary topic for Wild horse, here are some Google stats:

Google search results

Search term	Web	Book	Scholar
"wild horse" tarpan	11,000	635	150
"wild horse" przewalski	11,100	676	379
"wild horse" feral	29,400	669	579
"wild horse" mustang	197,000	835	504

So here's the deal. The page name Wild horse is ambiguous. Per WikiProject Mammals, on Wikipedia Wild horse would be the conventional page name for Equus ferus (tarpan plus Przewalski's horse). However, the primary topic for Wild horse would appear to be Mustang (horse). Although of the four most likely candidates it has the best claim to being primary, Mustang (horse) is not all that much more primary than the rest combined. Weighing all these factors, to me it seems making Wild horse a dab page is best solution within our reach. That will help a lot to ensure that readers do not see the wrong page, by enabling incoming links to be checked and directed to the correct article with the least effort. --Una Smith (talk) 05:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to state my biases up front - I prefer scientific names, but I endorse the use of "canonical" common names by WP:MAMMAL. So in principle, I agree with the idea of having Equus ferus at Wild horse. However, I think there's a pretty convincing case to be made that "wild horse" is used more often for feral horses than for true wild horses. (Of course, Equus ferus makes matters more confusing, but ICZN doesn't make allowances for the convenience of Wikipedia editors).

I think that strictly applying "the rules" this should be a dab page. But I'm not one to worry about that. My question is whether there might be some way to minimise the "surprise" factor...perhaps by addressing the general question of "wild horses" first, before talking about E. ferus. Might there be some way to "de-confuse" rather than disambiguate? Guettarda (talk) 19:09, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm...looks like consenus leans the other way. Oh well. Guettarda (talk) 19:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

In this case, the "canonical" common name "Wild horse" is more a name of convenience than a commonly used name for a commonly recognized taxon. Much of the literature on this taxon treats the two subspecies of Equus ferus as separate species or as two of three subspecies of Equus caballus. So, arguably the most common name of Equus ferus is Equus ferus. --Una Smith (talk) 21:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Guettarda and all, my take on this is that we have an example of a time to Ignore the rules. I can absolutely guarantee you that every kid with a book report on Mustangs is going to search for "wild horse." So whatever else we do, we really must direct people to what they really are looking for. However we get there, and it needs to be obvious. I am leaning toward the idea of making this sort of a page that is a portal to both the wild and feral horse articles, but not a disambig, which is too sketchy, nor a list, which will not provide info, but more of an article the is a brief overview of all the critters that get called "wild" horses. Which is what I think it was, once upon a time... Montanabw^(talk) 23:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

That is a set index article, in contrast to a disambiguation page. That might be the best solution here.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Or something along the lines of Saber-toothed cat, omitting any hint of prescription about what is a "true" wild horse? I have a concern with that article, though, that I also have about the "all things wild horse" version of this article. Having a saber tooth is an ecological niche and an example of convergent evolution, but the article Saber-toothed cat is written in part as though it were a clade. I think that article would work better if titled Saber tooth and focused more on the trait and less on the taxa in which it occurs. Both Wild horse and Tarpan are similar to Saber-toothed cat in that they deal with "kinds" of animals that do not correspond neatly to taxonomic groups of animals. --Una Smith (talk) 18:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Tarpans are clearly one creature. Some modern folks are borrowing the term as a PR stunt. End of that story. Montanabw^(talk) 02:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

feral horse section

Ok, it seems that we are not getting clarity and there is a revert war brewing on the page about this. So, should the feral horse section remain or be removed?

To add, I want to keep the paragraph in the lead on this for clarification. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 14:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• Remove. The issue is adequately addressed in the lead, so that people can find the appropriate article for this easily, and the inclusion of the feral horse section suggest they are actual wild horses, which they are not. So, I am in favour of removing it. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep I am OK with the contents of the lead (though the small laundry list of feral horses could get endless and may need to be cut if people start adding to it) But the paragraph also needs to stay. I need only reference the very first version of this article to prove my point that we NEED to keep an explanation here or else someone later on is going to come in and add it any way! I certainly would be OK with some editing of the text if there is a lack of clarity that could be confusing, but this IS where every fourth grader on the planet will come. So I have restored the text for now. We can discuss if it needs changes, of course. Also, per Wiki MOS, a lead is supposed to be a summary of article content, thus something only in the lead and not discussed later is actually not ideal article format. (I think this means I am splitting the difference with Kim (grin) with ya on one, opposed on the other LOL!) Montanabw^(talk) 05:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Remove the feral horse content from this article. It does not belong here. Kim and I worked out a disambiguation paragraph in the lead, but that may actually attract content about feral horses to this article. I suggest deleting the paragraph and using only a conventional {{distinguish}} hatnote, like this:

Not to be confused with Feral horse.

--Una Smith (talk) 01:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• Remove the feral horse section, but keep the introductory disambiguation paragraph. It is important that people seeking information about feral horses can easily find such information in links from an article whose title is "Wild horse", and the amount of space available in a hatnote is not sufficient for a discussion of the difference between a "wild" species and a "wild" group of individuals of a domesticated species. —AlanBarrett (talk) 10:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• Remove the feral horse section but keep the information in the lead. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 10:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - The problem with comments like "remove the section but keep the info in the lead" is that leads are supposed to be summaries of the body, with no new info. When at some point an editor goes to take this article to GAN, that's going to be one of the first things pointed out. If it's kept in the lead, it needs to be kept in the body. Dana boomer (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The paragraph in the lead is a disambiguation paragraph; disambiguated topics do not need to be and should not be mentioned further in the article. --Una Smith (talk) 15:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're talking about a hatnote only, then true. If you're talking about an entire paragraph (such as currently the second paragraph of the lead), not true. Dana boomer (talk) 15:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you about that, Dana, which is why I recommend deleting that paragraph from the lead. --Una Smith (talk) 15:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Unilateral move of Tarpan to Equus ferus ferus

I just discovered that Tarpan was moved without any discussion to Equus ferus ferus, unilaterally by Una. I have requested the move to be discussed and undone if no consensus for the original move exists. See Talk:Equus_ferus_ferus#Requested_move -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:06, 31 January 2009 (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)

Ancestry

I have reverted the most recent change by Montanabw. This is a change that should be disussed by the group before being implemented. I have raised questions regarding the reference being cited in the change before.

The reference: "Conquerors: The Roots of New World Horsemanship" by Deb Bennett, PhD. Amigo Publications, Inc. isbn=0-9658533-0-6|page=14.

As books are not peer reviewed, and this citation is being used in a number of Horse taxonomy related articles, I have asked for further references from peer reviewed journals which demonstrate the "Four Foundations" ""theory"" (Is it a theory???) has been published and accepted. At this point with the lack of supporting references It seems to be more of a pet Hypothesis. (please follow the links and read the definitions before answering!).

Please provide feedback HERE before any more changing of the text!--Kevmin (talk) 06:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Kev, I will review Kim's sources. But understand that Bennett is one of the leading and most respected professionals in the horse world on issues of equine conformation, history and development. She is a paleontologist and has worked for the Smithsonian. The bibliography in the book is about 10 pages long. That said, I do not always agree with her conclusions, but there is often a disconnect between scientists who are not always fully understanding of the horse world and horse people who are not scientists. Bennett is one of the few who is both. Hence she is a respected source. What I WILL grant is that the book is dated and some information may have been superseded by later DNA studies, hence why Kim's section below is nice to see. Montanabw^(talk) 08:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Youre missing the point I am trying to make, which is that being a book it was not peer reviewed, and as Kim succinctly put in her post, was never accepted by the scientific world, thus, without any backing peer reviewed publications should be regarded as suspect when being used as a reference. An extreme example would be the if Stephen Jay Gould, eminent paleontologist and proponent of evolution, wrote in one of his books that he thinks the Flying Spaghetti Monster killed the dinosaurs; written by a specialist of the subject but to be taken with cation without backing scientific papers. Peer review is key when discussing scientific issues such as evolution and origins.--Kevmin (talk) 09:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Montana, I understand that Bennett is a leading figure in the world regarding issues of equine conformation, history and development. And she has put forth a nice hypothesis (= theory in vernacular) which she nicely documented in the literature. Cool. That does not by itself validate her hypothesis. You are throwing around her credentials as a main reason to respect her hypothesis, but as a scientist myself, I am quite immune to that, and in the end, any hypothesis is judged on its merits and against the evidence. This has been done with bennetts hypothesis, and nobody has accepted her hypothesis as the best explanation for the domestication of the horse because the osteological and genetic data suggest otherwise, namely one genetic and osteological homogeneous subspecies spread out accross Eurasia and North America. In short, hypothesis proposed, tested and rejected. I might sound harsh here, but this is really where it is all about. So, exit hypothesis, and lets add it to the historical section about hypothesis development regarding the domestication of the horse. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am going to write a section about the genetic research that has been carried out, and this shows:

1. that based on ancient DNA (aka, DNA of horses from before domestication) that the Tarpan is a widespread across Eurasia and North America with no obvious genetic structuring within the subspecies. (and this is in line with the lack of any structuring in the bones/teeth in Eurasia)
2. that domestic horses are perfectly mixed with the tarpans, and again, there is no genetic structuring of any importance that distinguishes tarpans from domestic horses.
3. The Przewalski horses cluster together and some systematic differences (Y-chromosome genes, mtDNA, number of chromosomes) in the genetics clusters them together. The cluster is positioned in the middle of the horse family tree.
4. The genetic distance between przewalski's horses and the tarpan and domestic horse is substantially smaller than the genetic distances WITHIN the domestic horse and/or tarpans.
5. Ancient DNA shows that species thought to belong to a different subgenus (Amerhippus) actually are clustered within Equus ferus, casting serious doubt about many species described from limited bones or teeth only.
6. domestic horses have a large number of founding mares, and they are taken from all over the tarpan family tree
7. Overall, there is hardly any useful structuring within Equus ferus and its three subspecies.
8. subspecies are primarily distinguished on external characteristics. Cranial, skeleton and general appearance characteristics for tarpan versus przewalski, and standard domestication characteristics (longer manes, increased variability due to selective artificial breeding etc) for domestic horse from wild horses.
9. Most genetic research has been carried out AFTER the publication of "Conquerors: The Roots of New World Horsemanship", so to let a relative older book trump more recent genetic studies is improper.

So, I think there is a clear understanding what is going on, and this is what the article should show. I am working on it.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim's remarks assume a circumscription of "tarpan" that includes any and all horse-like equines that are neither domestic horses nor P's horses. Before we go much farther with this, let us please clarify the circumscription that we are to use for "tarpan" here on Wikipedia. The circumscription is very contentious, and it appears to be causing some confusion among editors here. For example: Montanabw thinks "tarpan" is an ancestor of certain horse breeds with grullo coloring, which to me suggests her circumscription of tarpan is restricted to horses with that coloring. In contrast, some of the specimens that fall within Kim's circumscription of tarpan are known to have had yellow dun coloring. --Una Smith (talk) 01:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, no I don't think Tarpans are grullo horses! That was YOU with your 1906 source. I think the Tarpan is a never-domesticated animal that was one of two true wild horses to survive into historical times. I have no clue what freaking color it was, given no color photography was around in the late 1800s. There are some theories that the dun gene itself is suggestive of some sort of "primitive horse" influence (and some breeds do not carry the dun gene at all) I don't think Tarpans are necessarily the ancestor of any modern breed, though in theory a few hybrids might have been fertile and thus I suppose there might be some Tarpan blood in a few.

Based on ancient DNA evidence and osteological evidence, there is only one subspecies in Europe. So, that is the tarpan. Seems pretty clear. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kim, "Europe" is a pretty narrow range for the horse, given that the first animals were domesticated in the steppes north of Mesopotamia and the first art demonstrating domestication was in Sumer, which, last I checked, was in Asia (LOL and smile!) Western Europeans were actually late to the domestication game, which came up from Greece and they got it from Persia... Montanabw^(talk) 00:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Montana, I was responding to Una here, if you read my long reply above, you see that I write Eurasia and North America. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

To me it seems pretty clear that the only subspecies in Europe is the domestic horse and the "tarpan" was a figment of the imagination. But that does not address my question, which is for purposes of Wikipedia how do we circumscribe "tarpan"? Does it include only those grullo horses reported in the Ukraine? Does it include grullo horses and ponies in northwestern Europe? Does it include the animals in the southern Iberian Peninsula from which Sorraia are derived? Does it include fossils and subfossils found in Europe? Does it include the animals depicted in European cave paintings? Does it include fossils and subfossils found in North America? --Una Smith (talk) 18:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Let go of the grullo thing, Una. It's the dun gene, which may overlay either a "red" (chestnut) or black base. (or, with agouti, the bay) That's the core "on/off" structure. Dun is a dominant, so if it's in a breed, it will become more and more common, just like Gray is a dominant, and in some breeds is becoming very prevalent. And frankly, we need to let go of the "cave painting horses are the Sorraia" thing too. That is romantic nonsense that there is some pure, unbroken line from a primitive ancestor to ANY modern breed at present. (the Andalusian breed claims the same thing in their promotional literature, by the way, so does the Friesian, so does the Arabian, the Akhal-teke and probably the Icelandic/Norwegian Fjord crowd too. Amusingly, 3 of the 4 groups each claim Bucephalus!) As far as I am concerned, the "Tarpan" is a wild, never-domesticated subspecies of horse, equus ferus ferus, that became extinct in the 19th century. That particular animal may or may not share a recent common ancestor of domestic horses, but obviously, there was at least one branch that no one could domesticate -- just like the zebra and the Przewalski -- that carried on into modern times.

Oh, first, sorry for the dustup over the addition, but I thought the article had settled down and was back to editing as normal. But at any rate, I restored the material in question anyway, if someone wants to tag it as a dubious source, that's fine while we discuss. Here's why it's in: Deb Bennett is a PhD in paleontology as well as being an equestrian writer, and hence in this respect a highly credible author. I need to see sources for the Tarpan as single foundation theory, as the above, though good as far as it goes, comes a bit close to a synthesis of research that is also OR in wikiland. And the DNA studies of the horse genome are far from complete, so we are STILL dealing with theories. I can certainly dig for Bennett's sources and see what has been published since, but the book was published in 1998, so it's not THAT old. Now, I don't really agree with Una's view either. BUT the wild Tarpan was a true creature that was not the same as the domestic horse, the bottom line is that Bennett's theory at its base is that the wild subspecies (or multiple subspecies, possibly) that WERE the ancestor of the domestic horse were wholly subsumed by domestication. The Tarpan that survived into modern times could not be domesticated. Thus, that animal, whatever it was, could not have been the ancestor of the domestic horse any more than the Przewalski's was. This defies logic. Could Tarpan DNA be in some modern horse breeds, sure, if the hybrids were sometimes fertile. But the Tarpan as ancestor theory was the old "single foundation" theory that was tossed in the 80s or so in favor of the four foundations. So I'd like to suggest that properly sourced material that is only 10 years old can certainly be challenged, but lacking a study that says yes, the Tarpan, same basic subspecies as the one that became extinct in the 1890s was the single foundation and the ONLY ancestor of the domesticated horse (as opposed to 100 year old material), then the multiple foundations theory needs to at least be noted as a contrasting view, even if questioned. Montanabw^(talk) 00:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Montana, when I write something, I know my references. Check out

1. SL Olsen (2006) Early Horse Domestication on the Eurasian Steppe, in Documenting domestication
2. C Vila eta l (2006) Genetic Documentation of Horse and Donkey Domestication, in Documenting domestication
3. Weinstock, J. (2005). "Evolution, systematics, and phylogeography of Pleistocene horses in the New World: a molecular perspective". PLoS Biology. 3 (8): e241. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030241. Retrieved 2008-12-19. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
4. Orlando, L. (2008). "Ancient DNA Clarifies the Evolutionary History of American Late Pleistocene Equids". Journal of Molecular Evolution. 66: 533–538. doi:10.1007/s00239-008-9100-x. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
5. Lau, Allison (2009). "Horse Domestication and Conservation Genetics of Przewalski's Horse Inferred from Sex Chromosomal and Autosomal Sequences". Mol. Biol. Evol. 26 (1): 199–208. doi:10.1093/molbev/msn239. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
6. Kavar, Tatjana (2008). "Domestication of the horse: Genetic relationships between domestic and wild horses". Livestock Science. 116: 1–14. doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2008.03.002. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
7. Groves, Colin P. (1994). Boyd, Lee and Katherine A. Houpt. (ed.). The Przewalski Horse: Morphology, Habitat and Taxonomy. Vol. Przewalski's Horse: The History and Biology of an Endangered Species. Albany, New YorkColin P. Groves: State University of New York Press.
8. Eisenmann, Vera (1998). "Quaternary Horses: possible candidates to domestication". The Horse: its domestication, diffusion and role in past communities. Proceedings of the XIII International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Forli, Italia, 8-14 September 1996. Vol. 1. ABACO Edizioni. pp. 27–36.
9. Ann T. Bowling, Anatoly Ruvinsky (2000) The Genetics of the Horse, CABI Publishing
10. Juliet Clutton-Brock (1999) A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals, Cambridge University Press
11. C Vila et al (2001) Widespread Origins of Domestic Horse Lineages Science.

The selection shows a few things, first that around the time of Bennett's book, several other books have been published, promoting different ideas. So, to claim this was the prevailing theory, not. I checked whether the book and its idea was cited in many other articles or books, and it is not. The latter is generally a reasonable indication that the idea is not shared by others (Compare this for example with A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals which has been cited at least 220 times versus a handful of citations for Bennett's book). When reading the details of her idea (see here for the same theory but with citations: http://www.equinestudies.org/mammalian_species_2008/mammalian_species_equus_caballus_pdf1.pdf). If I follwed it correctly back, the idea has been proposed first in "Origin and Distribution of Living Breeds of the Domestic Horse", Horse Breeding and Management by James Warren Evans. Anyway, what she proposes is not widely shared by others working in the same field, and more importantly, not supported by genetic studies. If her ideas are correct, and there are a bunch of subspecies, you should see something of a regional clustering in the ancient DNA samples, matched up with the proper early domesticated horse samples. The genetic data shoes exactly the opposite, a large panmixic population. The single foundations theory was replaced by the four foundations theory, which has been replaced by the many locations theory that is thought to be the way domestication occurred. The idea is that domestication has taken place simultaneously at various places, all belonging to a single subspecies, Equus ferus ferus, which explains the genetic variation currently present in the domestic horse.

To add. Yes, the Tarpan is NOT the same as the domestic horse, but genetically, they cannot be easily distinguished. That is not a problem, as phenotypically, there are obvious changes (longer manes, more variability in coat and other charactristics etc). The idea of Bennett that the wild subspecies where consumed by the domestication is bizarre and contrary each and every study dealing with domestication. There is no requirement for such a mechanism for domestication to occur. It also contradicts bennetts own idea that the tarpan is one of the four foundations, unless she wants to claim the wild tarpans were actually feral. Anyway, that makes the claim that the Tarpan could not be the ancestor invalid as well. Domestic horse przewalski horse hybrids are ALWAYS fertile. Anyway, I find a single book, that is hardly cited by scholars and that contains an idea that is impossible to find back in more recent literature about domestication of the horse, not really convincing. Especially because of the wide range of books and articles on the topic that contradict Bennett. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Una, I suggest that you provide us finally with some recent literature that actually supports your assertion beyond the 1906 reference. Besides that, every time I provide you with some references, you do not respond and than come back somewhere else with the same assertions. Sorry, no go. There are a bunch of discussions that addressed this already, go back to those and address those before asking the same once again. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim, your references don't address my question. They cannot, because most of the type specimens involved are not physical and cannot possibly provide morphometric characters, much less genetic sequences. As I have tried to explain before, to me it is apparent that you and Montanabw do not have the same taxonomic circumscription in mind when you use the term "tarpan". Evidently the same is true for Equus ferus. --Una Smith (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim, it's OK to chill. I'll look over the sources. My point is that, and I think you said something to the same effect above, the Tarpan (as in the critter that became extinct in the 19th century) is NOT necessarily the "most likely ancestor" of the domestic horse. It may have a common ancestor with some breeds, maybe. But the intro implies it's the same thing. If we can just remove the offending 10 words in the intro, I can live without making a lot of fuss about Bennett until I have looked over some of the research. (Note she actually proposed something like seven foundation subspecies, four of which became domesticated.) I won't say that I agree with all of her theories (I think she is too dismissive of anything that did not go through Spain), and I will look around to see what other explanations exist for the development of the four or so core phenotypes that do describe most modern horses. Whoever asked why "four foundations" isn't in peer-reviewed literature, that's a popular name for it. I'll do some digging and see if I can trace anything Ann Bowling's mtDNA studies are pretty useful, (and she was a horse breeder herself) but she died in about 2000, there doesn't seem to be a horse guru who is also chasing genetics stuff since her passing...Kim, do you know if any of these authors actually also knows real, live horses? (LOL!) Montanabw^(talk) 08:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Montana, I do not recall saying that the tarpan is not necessarily the most likely ancestor, and if I did, I think it was before I read all the references above and more. Nowadays, there is no serious discussion going on anymore about which spubspecies is the comon ancestor of the domestic horse, that is Equus ferus ferus. Yes, in a way, this is back to the one foundation theory, but with a twist in that it is not a single event, but many smaller events over a large area. But if foundations needs to be equated with subspecies, yes, there is a single foundation to the modern horse. As for the various main types in domestic horses, that is a idea based on the phenotype of the horses. The underlying hypothesis is that they are somewhat of seperate lines within the horse breeds. If that is true, there should be a corresponding genetic clustering of those conformations. However, when you study the genetics of those breeds, they do anything but obviously clustering, even within breeds. See for example C Vila et al (2001) Widespread Origins of Domestic Horse Lineages publsihed in Science. If you give me some time, I will put it all together nicely referenced and concise. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

To Quote Kim from about 5 posts above "Based on ancient DNA evidence and osteological evidence, there is only one subspecies in Europe. So, that is the tarpan. Seems pretty clear." thus she is saying that the Domestic horse is from the Tarpan.--Kevmin (talk) 09:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)Monatanabw, You did NOT read the information in the links to "Theory" and "hypothesis" and you did not respect my request to talk about changes BEFORE making them. so I will summarize them here.

Kev, I really hope you aren't trying to be insulting with your tone, but your tone is unnecessarily sarcastic and is not constructive. Frankly, you had vanished from the article and Kim was merrily editing away, I made some other small tweaks without anyone complaining. Frankly, the talk here has gotten so long that yes, I'm sure you somewhere asked that changes be discussed, but no, I missed it in the mix. The "ancestor of the domestic horse" was either a new add or a way-back revert that I spotted in a history check. So I fixed what I considered to be an egregious misstatement of fact that was not cited in the text below. Now be nice, it was a good faith edit. Montanabw^(talk) 08:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Montanabw, Kevmin's tone is entirely appropriate. It is not sarcastic nor is it insulting. --Una Smith (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm just rather frustrated. It is obvious that you reverted the change in the article before reading the talk page as my edit summary for the talk page asked. Then you did not read the links to Theory and hypothesis as asked so we would all be meaning the same thing when using the two terms. you have stated several times that you are not a taxonomist so I am trying to make the conversations easier by clarifying terms which are very different in meaning between vernacular and scientific use.--Kevmin (talk) 09:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• Theory: In the common vernacular this means any old idea about anything and everything without any sort of confirmation. in science it means a rigorously tested idea which has been reviewed and accepted by the scientific world.
• Hypothesis:A starting idea based on observations from which testing can be done and which may become a theory.

Thus the scientific definition of Hypothesis is the same as the common vernacular definition of Theory.

I stated specifically that i think the "Four Foundations" is a Hypothesis. This is due to the lack of any scientific paper backing up the book. Anyone can print anything in a book and call it a "theory", the real test is weather or they have published the idea in a scientific journal. The fact that Dr. Bennett is a Paleontologist is great BUT this does not mean her ideas get to trump scientifically accepted theories about horse origins. SHOW us scientific papers where Dr. Bennett has tested and put forth her idea and I will be much more willing to accept the premise. Show us the scientific papers refuting the "single foundation" idea and we will include that info in the article. So FAR there is proof for neither this my reluctance for accepting either.--Kevmin (talk) 02:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC) PS Further searching shows that Dr. Bennett has not actually published anything since her book, and there are no hits in google scholar for "Equus "Four foundations"" this is not a good sign.--Kevmin (talk) 03:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Kev, My only significant point is that I really, really, really do not like the opening line in the article implying that the Tarpan is "the" ancestor -- likely or otherwise -- of the domestic horse. That is the single foundation theory, which you also suggest is insufficiently supported. And it defies logic that an animal that was never domesticated and had to live in a zoo like a zebra could also be the same critter someone domesticated 5000 years ago. Common ancestor somewhere, sure. Same critter, no. So toss the partial phrase out of the intro and I will be happy. Montanabw^(talk) 08:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Logic has nothing to do with it. Historically, certain human beings were made to live in a zoo. Does that prove anything relevant to biology? No. --Una Smith (talk) 15:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Again I will Quote Kim from above "Based on ancient DNA evidence and osteological evidence, there is only one subspecies in Europe. So, that is the tarpan. Seems pretty clear." The current scientific research indicates the Tarpan was the ancestor of the domestic horse, the genetic "sprawl" is due to various populations in different areas providing genetic material to the domestic pool, which is what one would expect in this situation.--Kevmin (talk) 09:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It all turns on how "tarpan" is defined. If tarpan is defined broadly to mean any and all horses other than domestic horses, then this collective taxon is the ancestor of the domestic horse. That is the circumscription Kim uses. If tarpan is defined narrowly (Montanabw's "tarpan" is extremely narrowly defined), then the tarpan may be related to some but not all domestic horses. --Una Smith (talk) 15:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

References

Here is an are for EVERYONE to place references they are referring to in this discussion:

• Myka JL, Lear TL, Houck ML, Ryder OA, Bailey E (2003). "FISH analysis comparing genome organization in the domestic horse (Equus caballus) to that of the Mongolian wild horse (E. przewalskii)". Cytogenet. Genome Res. 102 (1–4): 222–5. doi:10.1159/000075753. PMID 14970707.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (This looks to be the paper KimvdLinde is referencing re the genetic similarities)

• Conquerors: The Roots of New World Horsemanship. Amigo Publications, Inc. 1998. p. 14. ISBN 0-9658533-0-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) (Actually, the 5 or 6 pages prior to p. 14, which is the chapter summary, gives the whole context) Partial sections of the book are on google books.

• SL Olsen (2006) Early Horse Domestication on the Eurasian Steppe, in Documenting domestication

• C Vila eta l (2006) Genetic Documentation of Horse and Donkey Domestication, in Documenting domestication

• Weinstock, J. (2005). "Evolution, systematics, and phylogeography of Pleistocene horses in the New World: a molecular perspective". PLoS Biology. 3 (8): e241. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030241. Retrieved 2008-12-19. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

• Orlando, L. (2008). "Ancient DNA Clarifies the Evolutionary History of American Late Pleistocene Equids". Journal of Molecular Evolution. 66: 533–538. doi:10.1007/s00239-008-9100-x. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Lau, Allison (2009). "Horse Domestication and Conservation Genetics of Przewalski's Horse Inferred from Sex Chromosomal and Autosomal Sequences". Mol. Biol. Evol. 26 (1): 199–208. doi:10.1093/molbev/msn239. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Kavar, Tatjana (2008). "Domestication of the horse: Genetic relationships between domestic and wild horses". Livestock Science. 116: 1–14. doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2008.03.002. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Groves, Colin P. (1994). Boyd, Lee and Katherine A. Houpt. (ed.). The Przewalski Horse: Morphology, Habitat and Taxonomy. Vol. Przewalski's Horse: The History and Biology of an Endangered Species. Albany, New YorkColin P. Groves: State University of New York Press.

• Eisenmann, Vera (1998). "Quaternary Horses: possible candidates to domestication". The Horse: its domestication, diffusion and role in past communities. Proceedings of the XIII International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Forli, Italia, 8-14 September 1996. Vol. 1. ABACO Edizioni. pp. 27–36.

• Ann T. Bowling, Anatoly Ruvinsky (2000) The Genetics of the Horse, CABI Publishing

• Juliet Clutton-Brock (1999) A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals, Cambridge University Press

• C Vila et al (2001) Widespread Origins of Domestic Horse Lineages Science.

Once more: Equus ferus ferus and Tarpan

Ok, there seems to be a substantial misunderstanding on how taxonomy works. So, I will try to explain a bit more here.

1. You determine the range of your taxon, based on genetics, morphology, behaviour, etc.
2. You check the literature for valid available names for that taxon.
3. You use the oldest available and valid name.

In the case of the Wild horse, that is

1. Based on genetic and osteological (fossil) material, a single taxon of horse roamed Europe, and large parts of Asia and North America, with an additional species in North America (Stilt-legged horse) and an additional subspecies in Asia (Przewalski)
2. Of all the available names, Equus ferus ferus is the oldest valid available name for this taxon.

So far, so good. The common name used for the wild horses described as Equus ferus ferus is Tarpan. In the range where Tarpan was used as a name, a seperate word (Takja or Muzin) was used for feral horses, so we can exclude that it was used originally to include feral horses. Hope this clarifies. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, no, that is not taxonomy. That is how non-taxonomists try to use taxonomy, without awareness of the question of circumscription. --Una Smith (talk) 17:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

So, you are a taxonomist? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim, you hope to use my credentials to decide if what I say is true? --Una Smith (talk) 18:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

No. No need for that. And thanks for answering my question, if you were a taxonomist, you would have just said so. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I have not answered the question, nor will I. Kim, you have said you are a scientist, so I think you should know the difference between no answer and a negative answer. --Una Smith (talk) 19:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yup, indeed, I know the difference. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim, in your process above, where do you think Circumscription (taxonomy) fits? --Una Smith (talk) 18:09, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You only can determine the range of a species, if you have determined the circumscription of that taxon, which is based on genetic, osteological etc. characteristics. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Una, why don't you explain me how this works, as you postulated what I wrote was not taxonomy. I am curious. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'm a taxonomist, and I have also played one on TV. I'm not sure what Una is getting at, but Kim's first point ("You determine the range of your taxon, based on genetics, morphology, behaviour, etc.") is kind of vague, specifically the word "range", which could be range of distribution, range of morphological or genetic variation, or some other range. Taxonomic circumscription takes this further, in that a circumscription either states or implies both what is included in the taxon and what is excluded. Kim gave a circumscription; she excluded the stilt-legged horse (perhaps the dressage horse from hell, although if it is Equus calobatus, it might instead be the dressage onager from hell) and Przewalski's Horse. She included, seemingly, everything else in Eurasia and N. America that would pass for a horse, I assume as contrasted with an ass or a zebra. So far, so good; if I interpreted right, that's a valid circumscription, and I imagine she could cite characteristics to support the inclusions and exclusions. Whether others agree is immaterial at this point; anyone can have a circumscription.

Kim gives step two as checking for available, valid names. This part is more complex, because names don't exist in a vacuum; every name has a type, and you must include the type in your circumscribed taxon in order to use the name. Kim has chosen Equus ferus Boddaert, 1785, as the basionym; as we know from other discussions, the type is Gmelin's description. What Kim is saying is that the description falls within her widespread species, and that it is explicitly not a Przewalski's, stilt leg, domestic horse, ass, or zebra. Also implicit here is that the types of Equus calobatus, Equus przewalski, Equus caballus, and the types of all the ass and zebra names are not included in her widespread species. Again, so far, so good, assuming I've characterized her reasoning correctly.

She evidently accepts that her widespread species, the domestic horse, and Przewalski's Horse are all subspecies of a single species. Equus ferus is conserved over Equus caballus and is an older name than Equus przewalski, so it is the correct (uh, "valid" in ICZN parlance) name for the species. Someone has made the combinations E. ferus caballus and E. ferus przewalski; the moment the first of those was published, E. ferus ferus was automatically created. So, for Kim, the valid name for her widespread (sub)species is E. ferus ferus. She has followed the rules, and has done a credible job of circumscription, assuming that the evidence supports her. I have no opinion on the evidence, but it does seem to me that there are only two remaining questions: (1) does the evidence support the con(sub)specificity of all the non-Przewalski, non-ass, and non-zebra Equus of the late Pleistocene and Holocene, and (2) can Gmelin's description of E. ferus be reliably placed in this (sub)species.

Una, this probably wasn't what you were looking for, but I hope it clarified the points that are worthy of contention.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Curtis, thank you for this long reply. I think you summed up quite nicely what I have done. Yes, I should have been clearer about step one, and split the determination of the defining characters from determining which individuals are included (circumscription) from the description of the species. As for point one, see Groves and the various genetic articles. As for point two, if E. ferus would be a different species (falling outside the subspecies), ancient DNA and osteological fossil evidence should have recovered a second clade in Europe and western part of Asia, which has not been found. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, so, summing up all of the above

OK, here's where I am at. Kim is explaining what she is doing and where she is going, and, with her explanations, I am becoming more comfortable with her approach. Yes, Kim, please do add in a bit that explains the four foundations in more accurate terms, I think that a solid explanation will help people in the future. Kev, please note that Kin handled this by assuming that I am an intelligent human being capable of being swayed by logic, reason, and legitimate sources. Amazing how that can work sometimes. Bottom line is that the problem I am still having with the "most likely ancestor of the domestic horse" line in the lead is that it feeds all the "bred back Tarpan" crowd and implies that the wild prototype IS a domestic horse. I would prefer something to the effect of the lineage was the source of the domestic horse, not implying that the 1800's extinct horse could have just been saddled up and taken out for a spin, which it obviously was not. Montanabw^(talk) 01:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Montana, yes, I think you are very intelligent, and I respect you very much as an editor. I have no problem adding something about the four foundations hypothesis. Vila actually addressed that hypothesis in her 2001 study using genetics, and concluded that it is not supported by the genetic evidence (with which I agree). What I think we have to do is add a section on the history of thought regarding domestication, and how it has evolved, both here and in the "domestication of the horse" article. Bred-back breeds maybe have a bit more recent wild horse genes, but they are NOT the wild horse, and I took a stab at it explaining that a bit better in the lead. I think it is a necessary part of the lead. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Kim. I'm good with both of the above if you are taking the lead on it. Material from Villa would be great (I will actually try and read that article, very busy in real life, do not always have time to access the paid databases over in the college library) The "bred-backs" may not necessarily have more wild horse genes at all, I would want to see a study on that before I'd buy it (amazing what only a few generations of selective breeding can do to a phenotype if you are breeding aggressively for something)...to me the Heck and Koniks look pretty similar to a lot of other drafty-pony breeds of Northern Europe, particularly the Icelandics and such. Also, there is the "our breed is the pure one from the ancient wild subspecies" stuff that exists in many breeds and, as you know, is one of my pet peeves. Anyway, my latest edits on the article are intended as "wikifairy" work, to clarify what is being said, in hopes that it is a little clearer to the average reader. If in my edits I changed a meaning or nuance, just fix it, as all is happening in good faith. Montanabw^(talk) 05:21, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Good job clarifying! -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Photo of fossil

I have this photo of a Danish specimen of "Equus ferus" from 9100 BC, at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen.[2] Anyone know what the taxonomic status of such animals is beyond that? Would the photo be helpful in the article (I have it in higher res, and I could perhaps remove the glare)? We don't seem to have photos of other specimens, only some teeth. FunkMonk (talk) 23:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty cool! With the horse being domesticated about 3000 years later, I'd say equus ferus is really all we need and all we can really say unless the exhibit had a more detailed taxonomy. See the infobox for the full thing. Montanabw^(talk) 20:26, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The classification didn't go further than that. I've added the image with the full details. I'll try to take a new one with less glare at some point, but luckily it doesn't overlap the skeleton itself. FunkMonk (talk) 20:42, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Good addition, thanks! Montanabw^(talk) 03:59, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Request clarification of a debate

You guys are making me taxonomically dizzy.  :) I'll ask this as a layman:

IF THE FOLLOWING TWO ITEMS ARE ACCEPTED AS FACT (tell me if the premise/conclusion is broken logic):

• All horse subspecies have a common root (evolved from) a horse in North America.
• Domesticated horses were in fact brought over in the 15th century, subsequently escaped, and formed a feral horse breed.

Does this mean then that the following is true?

• The horses were no longer present in the Americas prior to the re-introduction in the 15th century? In other words, is it argued that to some degree, a small percentage never left?

It's a distinction that I'm not seeing spelled out.Tgm1024 (talk) 15:50, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean, never left America? There were horse species in North America until the ice age (like the Western horse and the Mexican horse), but they all went extinct. And it wouldn't be subspecies that originated in North America, but the entire family itself. The modern horse species evolved in Eurasia. FunkMonk (talk) 17:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

See evolution of the horse for the details of the earliest ancestors of the horse. For here, the short explanation is that there were NO horses of any kind in the Americas for about 10,000 years. No, there was not a small percentage of original horses "left behind," Horses that once existed in the Americas before the end of the last Ice Age Interglacial period either migrated off of the continent via the Bering Land Bridge or died out. The modern Mustang and other feral breeds can, arguably, be deemed a "reintroduced" animal, but they are definitely NOT the same subspecies that was once found in the Americas. DNA studies of fossil horses compared to modern ones have shown no direct links. Montanabw^(talk) 23:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Is the domestic horse a type of wild horse?

This article defines "Wild horse" as "the species Equus ferus, which includes [...] the domesticated Equus ferus caballus" and "The wild horse [...] includes as subspecies the domesticated horse", but wouldn't the normal definition of the term "Wild horse" be to refer to the non-domesticated wild subspecies, as opposed to the domesticated subspecies. I doubt most sources would conceder the domestic horse to be a type of wild horse. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 09:01, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

As I said elsewhere, this is a taxonomic classification thing. Equus ferus caballus is the domestic horse; Equus ferus is the now-extinct wild ancestor, Equus ferus przewalskii is the extant (living) true wild horse. All other "wild" horses are feral horses. Montanabw^(talk) 19:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Taxonomy aside, my point exactly. At Talk:Aurochs you said "[I]n horses [...] "Wild" means "ancestors never domesticated.", and I would think that most RS would agree that the domestic horse is not a type of wild horse. Even if the wild horse is the same species as the domestic horse, "domestic wild horse" would probably be conceded an oxymoron by the standards of most RS, yet the article says "The wild horse [...] includes [...] the domesticated horse". Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 08:29, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

But we can't set "taxonomy aside." Scientific consensus to acknowledge the mutual wild ancestor of all the modern subspecies may seen illogical, like turning your car's wheels into a skid, but I get their reasoning. And when we include the material omitted here by ellipses, it makes sense. I'm open to ways of explaining it better, though... Montanabw^(talk) 18:18, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Article title and scope

OK, so I see there's already been a lot of fairly ill-tempered discussion on this page, and I also know it's not either scientific or particularly productive to try to link common names to systematic ones. However, this article seems to be about the species Horse, Equus ferus, which includes several sub-species including the domestic horse (currently a redirect to the article we have at Horse, which is only about Equus ferus caballus), the Tarpan, Przewalski's Horse and so on. That means that it is not exclusively about wild horses, and may be part of what makes it seem confused and lacking in clarity.

Might it make more sense to have Equus ferus caballus at Domestic horse, Equus ferus at Horse, and make this title a disambiguation page or set index article to the various meanings of "wild horse"? An alternative might be to move this page to Equus ferus, as was proposed in 2009. Consensus then was against such a move; has consensus changed?Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:53, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Please no. That was a long-ago settled matter (ping Ealdgyth who may have institutional memory on this also -- That 2009 editor, UnaSmith, was highly disruptive, long story) The original concept of this particular article was not to replace Equus (genus), which is a GA, nor was it to replace Horse, which is also a GA. (We also have feral horse and so on). The purpose of this article was to create an overview for those people who searched for the phrase "wild horse," not understanding the wild/feral dichotomy. In part, if memory serves, the original kerfuffle was that this article was redirecting to Mustang, then to the Przewalski horse article, then to Tarpan, then back to Mustang... creating this article was intended to be more of a definitions article that would direct people to which "wild" horse they were looking for. Montanabw^(talk) 03:27, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Much of this new content, while useful, might be better added to other articles, though it looks like mostly it's sourcing. But I think a quick fail for GAN due to the neither fish nor fowl problem you rightly note. Montanabw^(talk) 03:27, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, there was a big debate over taxonomy long ago, and a very good taxonomist ( Kim van der Linde now, sadly, retired), who explained some of this -- as can be seen in the threads above (and it was possibly discussed elsewhere too, can't recall which article now, possibly the Horse GAN) She particularly explained the trinomial system of naming (Equus ferus caballus), and explained that e. ferus is not any modern "wild" horse, (even the Tarpan, for instance, is e. ferus ferus) but rather the core name for the ancestral wild horse from which all extant horses now descend -- or something like that -- It's hopelessly complicated, and I'm not a taxonomist, so I may not be explaining it right, but the redirect of e. ferus to horse was well thought-out and done consciously. So dear god in heaven, let's not get into that redirection battle again, it was settled years ago...yes, consensus can change, but that one was a hard-fought battle. Montanabw^(talk) 03:27, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, FWIW, the issue of naming article "domestic" this or that across multiple animal articles -- sheep, pig, cattle -- was another very nasty battle I was not involved with and mostly settled before I ever started editing. I think WP:COMMONNAME was the primary guidline used there. Montanabw^(talk) 03:27, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

(runs screaming from anything to do with Una). I have no knowledge and I take the fifth. (Seriously though, nah, not a memory of this particular Una-issue.) Ealdgyth - Talk 19:06, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what I was asked to review. At first glance, all I see is that it needs a bit of copyediting. I'm not aware of the disruption from the past, and don't see how improving semantics and syntax (which this article needs) will dredge up anything from the past. What am I missing here? ^{Atsme📞📧} 14:14, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Atsme, what do you think this article is about (I know I don't know)? Is it about the species Equus ferus? If so, all the stuff about feral horses is superfluous, the page would need a history of the species, its establishment by Gmelin, description and location of the type, details of synonyms, sub-species and so on. If on the other hand the page is intended to be a set-index for the various meanings of "wild horse" then it should not claim to be about Equus ferus, and should contain a short paragraph on each of the various meanings with a link to the main article on that topic. At the moment it's neither fish nor fowl. Personally, I see little point in fixing the grammar until the scope has been established.

Montanabw, Ealdgyth, old history is just that. What happened in 2009 has little relevance or importance here today. I don't care what form this article takes, but it surely needs to take some form. If this is to be an "overview", as Montana suggests, then one possibility is to make a new page for the species Equus ferus. Montana, Kim was/is not a taxonomist, as is clear from discussion on this page if nothing else, and as far as I recall never claimed to be one; she knows a lot more about taxonomy than I do. Curtis Clark, on the other hand, does identify as a taxonomist; I wonder if he might care to comment here? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:23, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

To me, it's a clear candidate for a disambiguation page, since the term in English is used ambiguously. But then I stopped editing because things that seemed clear to me often weren't clear to others. Curtis Clark (talk) 04:19, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I'm indifferent to what the title is for this article. It's not a high interest for me, so I'll leave it for others to decide, those that might be likely to work on it. If I'm not going to work on it, I really don't think I should be dictating/etc what the scope/title should be. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:27, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I apologise for my late response. As per the suggestions, I am withdrawing it from the GA nominations. Also would I recommend (not to a specific person or anything, but just for the sake of saying) that I do not think any ill-temper regarding this or any other article should be there. Articles are made by us humans, so it is not good to have unhealthy discussions over them. I did not see the talk page and I was not aware of the happenings of this talk page. This was my fault of not having looked at all the discussions at the talk page. Anyways, thank you everybody for letting me know about such possibilities of disputes, so that I can keep even more details in mind while editing any such (or even of any other type) articles having disputes. :) Adityavagarwal (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

My summary of the article in a nutshell. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:54, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Er, isn't that entirely about the domestication of the horse? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:04, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

We have Wild horse (disambiguation), plus horse, Equus (genus), Domestication of the horse, feral horse, articles on every subspecies (Przewalski's horse, etc.) and so on. Way back, this article was more about Mustangs and other feral horses; the original idea here was more or less to be a page that explains what "wild horse" means because a) Most laypeople still think that feral horses are "wild mustangs" and b) the disambiguation page goes well beyond equines into song titles, geographic locations, and so on. But at the end of the day, what happened here was someone made a bad GA nom. If we want to make this into a "meta-disambiguation" page or an annotated list or whatever form of cleanup, that's fine, whatever works to explain the science and the various meanings... Montanabw^(talk) 05:51, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Extinct or Endangered

I think the wild horse should be classified as a extinct species rather then a endangered species because wild horses no longer exist and the only horses that roam free in the wild are feral horses including the Przewalski's horse. Dennis the mennis (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

I thought the Przewalski's horse was a feral horse but a 2021 research showed that the Botai horse and its descendants were not domesticated but still wild Dennis the mennis (talk) 20:04, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Because the situation with the Przewalski horse is quite unsettled, I think we’re going to just leave it be. This particular article encompasses both feral horses and the potential wild ancestors and any extent species, so I think it is best we just wait for the science to shake out. Clearly, the taming of Przewalski horses was a failed experiment, and the distinction of “wild” versus “domesticated” is complex. Montanabw^(talk) 17:48, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposition

It really makes no sense to call Equus ferus the wild horse. It means that the domestic horse is a type of wild horse as someone else here already pointed out, surely you guys see the logical incoherency with that right?

I propose this:

Equus ferus = horse

Equus ferus caballus = domestic horse

Equus ferus przewalski = wild horse/Przewalski's horse

Please let me know what you think. Mason1999 (talk) 16:31, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The domestic horse is a type of wild horse. Just like the domestic cow is a type of aurochs. FunkMonk (talk) 16:42, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Cows are their own species, they are classified as Bos taurus whereas Aurochs are Bos primigenius.

So this isn't really an equivalent comparison. Being a subspecies is not the same thing as being a distinct species that evolved from another species. Mason1999 (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

What's a species or a subspecies is arbitrarily determined by humans. It's exactly the same scenario whatever you call the taxa involved, a domesticated form descended from a wild ancestor. FunkMonk (talk) 20:20, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Courtesy note

Another editor violated WP:3RR in trying to remove the name and description "European wild horse" in the lead. With the plurality of sources using this terminology, even with some modern disagreement on its accuracy, I'll reinsert the phrasing in three or so days unless there are others who oppose this. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Correcting scientific name

I note that as at 28 April 2023 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wild_horse&oldid=1152087373) the name for this taxon is stated to be Equus caballus (changed at some point from E. ferus) which is incorrect - E. caballus (or sometimes E. ferus caballus) is the domesticated horse, whereas E. ferus (which is sometimes held to include caballus as a subspecies) is the wild form (nomenclature of the latter as per ICZN Opinion 2027 (2003)). That the name has been changed in this article (inconsistently I may add) is clear that in the taxon box which at that point read "Equus caballus Boddaert, 1785" which makes no sense, Boddaert being the author of ferus, not caballus.

I think it is possible that the erroneous content originates from MSW 3 (2005) which did indeed use caballus as the "larger" taxon i.e. inclusive of ferus, caballus and przewalskii, however this was in contravention of the ICZN Opinion listed above and was subsequently admitted to be an error in Groves & Grubb, 2011, p.8 (https://books.google.com.au/books?redir_esc=y&id=XAX0bqw-I2oC&q=caballus#v=snippet&q=caballus&f=false); according to ICZN and all other subsequent "authoritative" sources other than MSW 3 (including ITIS, Groves & Grubb, 2011 and the ASM Mammal database, as well as the IUCN Red List) the correct name for the "inclusive" taxon is ferus; whether or not this also includes przewalskii as a subspecies, or whether the latter is admitted as a full species, appears to be an open question at this time (some sources say subspecies, others species).

Accordingly I have done my best to change everything relevant to the wild horse from caballus back to ferus (which is what I think was the original situation with this page) to correct this misunderstanding. If any of my changes are not quite right, or are subject to further debate, please feel free to advise further by commenting here. Regards - Tony Rees, Australia Tony 1212 (talk) 06:24, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. This is an overview of the concept that includes the complicated history if the original e. Ferus. So yes…you are correct. Montanabw^(talk) 00:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Conversation status

Why equus ferus is listed as endangered species despite being widely abundant around the world? 2404:8000:1027:85F6:E11A:3B9E:4CFC:C573 (talk) 07:23, 31 May 2023 (UTC)