Yonaguni horses are short in stature, much like a pony.
At one time there were many native horses in the Ryukyuan Islands. One breed, the Yonaguni horse, like the others, was used for agricultural and transportation purposes, but the special characteristic of the Yonaguni horse is that it is short in stature, much like a pony. Since the 1930 fs the number of these horses has decreased due to advances in transportation. On Yonaguni Island, where once more than a thousand of the horses roamed at large, the number dropped to twenty-five in the late sixties. Mr. Eiki Urasaki, aged 60, who was familiar with the horses since his childhood days, was worried about the low number of horses.