Tarpan
Encyclopedia
Tarpan is an extinct
subspecies of wild horse
. The last individual of this subspecies died in captivity in Russia
in 1909.
Beginning in the 1930s, several attempts have been made to re-create the tarpan through selective breeding
(see breeding back
). The breeds that resulted included the Heck horse
, the Hegardt
or Stroebel's horse, and a derivation of the Konik
breed, all of which resembled the original tarpan, particularly in having the grullo
coat color of the tarpan.
The name "tarpan" or "tarpani" is from a Turkic language
(Kyrgyz
or Kazakh
) name meaning "wild horse
". The Tatars and Cossack
s distinguished the wild horse from the feral horse
; the latter was called Takja or Muzin.
in 1774; he had seen the animals in 1769 in the region of Bobrovsk, near Voronezh
. In 1784 Pieter Boddaert
named the species Equus ferus, referring to Gmelin's description. Unaware of Boddaert's name, Otto Antonius
published the name Equus gmelini in 1912, again referring to Gmelin's description. Since Antonius' name refers to the same description as Boddaert's it is a junior objective synonym. It is now thought that the domesticated horse
, named Equus caballus by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, is descended from the tarpan; indeed, many taxonomists consider them to belong to the same species. By a strict application of the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
, the Tarpan ought to be named E. caballus, or if considered a subspecies, E. caballus ferus. However, biologists have generally ignored the letter of the rule and used E. ferus for the Tarpan to avoid confusion with its domesticated cousins.
In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
"conserved the usage of 17 specific names based on wild species, which are pre-dated by or contemporary with those based on domestic forms", confirming E. ferus for the Tarpan. Taxonomists who consider the domestic horse a subspecies of the wild Tarpan should use Equus ferus caballus; the name Equus caballus remains available for the domestic horse where it is considered to be a separate species.
and Spain
east to central Russia
. There are cave drawings of what are believed to be Tarpans in France
and Spain
, as well as artifacts believed to show the species in southern Russia, where Scythian nomads domesticated a horse of this type around 3000 BC.
The Tarpan horse died out in the wild between 1875 and 1890, when the last known wild mare was accidentally killed during an attempt at capture. The last captive Tarpan died in 1909 in a Russian zoo. An attempt was made by the Polish
government to save the Tarpan type by establishing a preserve for animals descended from the Tarpan in a forested area in Bialowieza
. These descendents are today sometimes referred to as the Polish primitive horse.
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 was completely successful, although all three resulted in horses with many similarities to the Tarpan.
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
subspecies of wild horse
Wild Horse
The wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes as subspecies the domesticated horse as well as the undomesticated Tarpan and Przewalski's Horse. The Tarpan became extinct in the 19th century, and Przewalski's Horse was saved from the brink of extinction and reintroduced...
. The last individual of this subspecies died in captivity in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
in 1909.
Beginning in the 1930s, several attempts have been made to re-create the tarpan through selective breeding
Selective breeding
Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...
(see breeding back
Breeding back
Breeding back can be described as either a natural or a human attempt to assemble or re-assemble the genes of an extinct species, subspecies or domesticated breed, which may still be present in the larger gene pool of the overall species or those of multiple interbreedable species.Breeding back is...
). The breeds that resulted included the Heck horse
Heck horse
Heck horse is a horse breed that resembles the extinct wild equine, the Tarpan, . The breed was created by the German zoologist brothers Heinz Heck and Lutz Heck, director of the Berlin Zoo, at the Tierpark Hellabrunn in Germany in their attempt to breed back the tarpan...
, the Hegardt
Hegardt
Hegart is the surname of a Swedish noble family. Josiah Hegardt , who was reported to have been born in Borken in Holstein was the oldest known ancestor. Josiah Hegardt was the steward of Svenstorp in Odarslöv parish in the county of Malmöhus. After the death of Josias Hegardt, the family moved to...
or Stroebel's horse, and a derivation of the Konik
Konik
The Konik or Polish primitive horse is a small horse, a kind of semi-feral horse, originating in Poland. The Polish word konik is the diminutive of koń, the Polish word for "horse" . However, the name "konik" or "Polish konik" is used to refer to certain specific breeds...
breed, all of which resembled the original tarpan, particularly in having the grullo
Grullo
Grullo is a color of horses in the dun family, characterized by tan-gray or mouse-colored hairs on the body, often with shoulder and dorsal stripes and black barring on the lower legs. In this coloration each individual hair is mouse-colored, unlike a roan which is composed of a mixture of dark and...
coat color of the tarpan.
Name and etymology
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
(Kyrgyz
Kyrgyz language
Kyrgyz or Kirgiz, also Kirghiz, Kyrghiz, Qyrghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...
or Kazakh
Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
) name meaning "wild horse
Wild Horse
The wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes as subspecies the domesticated horse as well as the undomesticated Tarpan and Przewalski's Horse. The Tarpan became extinct in the 19th century, and Przewalski's Horse was saved from the brink of extinction and reintroduced...
". The Tatars and Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
s distinguished the wild horse from the feral horse
Feral horse
A feral horse is a free-roaming horse of domesticated ancestry. As such, a feral horse is not a wild animal in the sense of an animal without domesticated ancestors. However, some populations of feral horses are managed as wildlife, and these horses often are popularly called "wild" horses...
; the latter was called Takja or Muzin.
Taxonomy
The tarpan was first described by Johann Friedrich GmelinJohann Friedrich Gmelin
Johann Friedrich Gmelin was a German naturalist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist and malacologist.- Education :Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp Friedrich Gmelin in 1748 in Tübingen...
in 1774; he had seen the animals in 1769 in the region of Bobrovsk, near Voronezh
Voronezh
Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...
. In 1784 Pieter Boddaert
Pieter Boddaert
Pieter Boddaert was a Dutch physician and naturalist.Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name . Pieter Jr. obtained his M.D. at the University of Utrecht in 1764 and there became a lecturer on natural history. Fourteen letters survive of his correspondence with Carl...
named the species Equus ferus, referring to Gmelin's description. Unaware of Boddaert's name, Otto Antonius
Otto Antonius
Otto Antonius was director of the Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna, zoologist, palaeontologist and co-founder of the modern zoological biology.- Early life :...
published the name Equus gmelini in 1912, again referring to Gmelin's description. Since Antonius' name refers to the same description as Boddaert's it is a junior objective synonym. It is now thought that the domesticated horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
, named Equus caballus by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, is descended from the tarpan; indeed, many taxonomists consider them to belong to the same species. By a strict application of the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals...
, the Tarpan ought to be named E. caballus, or if considered a subspecies, E. caballus ferus. However, biologists have generally ignored the letter of the rule and used E. ferus for the Tarpan to avoid confusion with its domesticated cousins.
In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 28 members from 20 countries, mainly practicing zoological taxonomists...
"conserved the usage of 17 specific names based on wild species, which are pre-dated by or contemporary with those based on domestic forms", confirming E. ferus for the Tarpan. Taxonomists who consider the domestic horse a subspecies of the wild Tarpan should use Equus ferus caballus; the name Equus caballus remains available for the domestic horse where it is considered to be a separate species.
History
The Tarpan is a prehistoric wild horse type that ranged from Southern FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
east to central Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. There are cave drawings of what are believed to be Tarpans in France
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
and Spain
Altamira (cave)
Altamira is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands....
, as well as artifacts believed to show the species in southern Russia, where Scythian nomads domesticated a horse of this type around 3000 BC.
The Tarpan horse died out in the wild between 1875 and 1890, when the last known wild mare was accidentally killed during an attempt at capture. The last captive Tarpan died in 1909 in a Russian zoo. An attempt was made by the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
government to save the Tarpan type by establishing a preserve for animals descended from the Tarpan in a forested area in Bialowieza
Bialowieza
Białowieża is a village in Poland, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, in the middle of Białowieża Forest, of which it is a namesake. The population of the settlement is 2000...
. These descendents are today sometimes referred to as the Polish primitive horse.
Recreation of type
Heck horse
Heck horse is a horse breed that resembles the extinct wild equine, the Tarpan, . The breed was created by the German zoologist brothers Heinz Heck and Lutz Heck, director of the Berlin Zoo, at the Tierpark Hellabrunn in Germany in their attempt to breed back the tarpan...
. In 1936, Polish university professor Tadeusz Vetulani
Tadeusz Vetulani
Dr. Tadeusz Bolesław Vetulani was a Polish agriculturalist and biologist, associate professor of Adam Mickiewicz University in animal husbandry...
began a program using Konik
Konik
The Konik or Polish primitive horse is a small horse, a kind of semi-feral horse, originating in Poland. The Polish word konik is the diminutive of koń, the Polish word for "horse" . However, the name "konik" or "Polish konik" is used to refer to certain specific breeds...
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 was completely successful, although all three resulted in horses with many similarities to the Tarpan.
See also
- Przewalski's HorsePrzewalski's HorsePrzewalski's Horse or Dzungarian Horse, is a rare and endangered subspecies of wild horse native to the steppes of central Asia, specifically China and Mongolia.At one time extinct in the wild, it has been reintroduced to its native habitat in Mongolia at the Khustain Nuruu...
- Domestication of the horseDomestication of the horseThere are a number of hypotheses on many of the key issues regarding the domestication of the horse. Although horses appeared in Paleolithic cave art as early as 30,000 BCE, these were truly wild horses and were probably hunted for meat. How and when horses became domesticated is disputed...
- List of extinct animals of Europe
- Žemaitukas