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This article was a little hard to follow. The takeaway I got was that the Botai horse which was considered the last species of wild horse is genetically similar
by codezero 9y ago
This article was a little hard to follow. The takeaway I got was that the Botai horse which was considered the last species of wild horse is genetically similar to the earliest known domestic horse breeds, so it is better classified as a feral horse species.
Edit: see correction in comment below!
- rntz 9y agoThat's almost right, but you have the Botai horse and Przewalski's horse confused. The Botai were a human culture living in what is now Kazakhstan, approximately 3700-3100 BCE. They kept domesticated horses, and are the earliest culture known to have done so, so "Botai horse" would be a name for whatever kind of horses they had. Przewalski's horse is a population of horses that exists today. It was considered the last wild horse (meaning: neither domesticated nor descended from domesticated horses), but the article says it is merely a feral population descended from Botai horses.
- codezero 9y agoThanks for the correction. Botai is a lot easier to remember and type for me I guess :)