From: tracy@scoraz.resp-sci.arizona.edu (Tracy Scheinkman)
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian
Subject: interbreeding (was: help need friend)
Date: 28 Jul 92 06:44:38 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ


 In article 7925 doconnor@sedona.intel.com (Dennis O'Connor) writes:

>tracy@scoraz.resp-sci.arizona.edu (Tracy Scheinkman) writes:
>] There is some confusion in some books between Przywalski's horse and
>] the Tarpan

>The book I gave was a textbook from my wife's college courses.
>This isn't proof of infallibility, but it gives it credibility.

>] which was a primitive wild horse that became extinct through
>] interbreeding with modern horses and has only been recreated by taking
>] letting them run wild in a forest preserve until they bred true for
>] those characteristics and resembled the Tarpan of old.

>One such re-creation effort ( the only one I know of, which I
>actually visited and saw the "Tarpans" at ) is at the Catskill
>Game Farm in Catskill, New York. But I think this is a directed
>breeding program, not letting the horses "run wild". Catskill
>Game Farm is a privately owned  combination public-allowed zoo
>( for the revenue )  and off-limits wildlife preserve. You can
>probably call them for info ( you'd have to get the number from
>directory assistance.

>] Perhaps it is this horse, which is sometimes called (by confused sources)
>] Equus Przywalski Tarpanensis, that some books are confusing with the
>] Asiatic Wild Horse (Equus Przywalski)?

>The book had lots of good scientific details in it ( like pictures
>of the chromosomes of all the Equids, and some of the crosses ).
>I don't think the four authors have a high probability of confusion.
>But if you find they are wrong, you should definately let them 
>know : I really hate it when college textbooks are completely wrong !
>Good luck with your varied researchs !
--
>Dennis O'Connor			doconnor@sedona.intel.com

	Perhaps your wife's text book is correct, perhaps not (being in
a textbook does not necessarily make info correct, I came across much
incorrect info when I was studying for my Biology degree).  However
I was working from memory as I haven't got the library books I read at 
that time in front of me right now.  But please give me credit for
at least remembering correctly the info on the 3 species of zebra
and the quagga (regardless of whether I spelled the names right)
I did do a paper for Biogeography on them and I did do a great deal 
of research for that paper. 
	The info on the Tarpans I quote from Simon and Schuster's
Guide to Horses and Ponies, "The Tarpan is regarded as the progenitor of
all lightly-built breeds now in existence, although it is itself extinct.
The last member of the breed living in the wild died in 1879 in a 
desperate attempt to avoid capture, and the last Tarpan in captivity died
in Munich zoo in 1887.  It was a difficult pony to tame for use in 
agriculture.  There were two distinct types of Tarpan, one living on the 
steppes, and the other in forested areas.  Both strains lived in the wild
in Eastern Europe, from Poland to the Ukraine.  In an attempt to restore
the breed the Polish government commandeered all horses displaying
features similar to those of the Tarpan, and put them into the forests of
Popielno and Bialowieza."  The reserve you saw must have gotten its 
horses from stock that originated with these.
	(How a Quarter Horse mare could get in with a bunch of Przewalski's
Horses kept at a zoo requires some explaining!  I'll bet the zookeepers
really had to scramble.  It sounds a little suspect to me, else how
would the species have existed so long as a separate species with
a different number of chromosomes.  I would at least like to understand
how offspring from this cross, modern horse with Przewalski's
horse, can be fertile as it defies biological explanation.  Granted my
B.S. was conferred in 1979 but something of what I learned then must
still be correct.  Were the horses that crossed with the quarter horse
mare Asiatic Wild Horses who have a different chromosome number from
modern horses or Tarpans who have the same number of chromosomes (I
believe).  Please educate me, anyone with solid info.)

				Tracy and everybody
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian