Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus
, also known as Eurasian wild horse) is an extinctIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
subspecies of wild horseThe wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes both the domesticated horse subspecies as well as the undomesticated Tarpan and the Przewalski's Horse. The Tarpan became extinct in the 19
th century, and the Przewalski's Horse was saved from the brink of extinction and...
. The last individual of this subspecies died in captivity in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a 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 breedingSelective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains which 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 backBreeding 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 of a domesticated breed, which may still be present in the larger gene pool of the overall species or other interbreedable species.In Domestic animals...
). The breeds that resulted included the
Heck horseHeck 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 or Stroebel's horse, and a derivation of the
KonikThe Konik or Polish primitive horse is a small horse, a kind of semi-wild pony, 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
grulloGrullo 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.
The name "tarpan" or "tarpani" is from a
Turkic languageThe Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty 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 by some...
(
KyrgyzKyrgyz or Kirghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...
or
KazakhKazakh is a Turkic language closely related to Kyrgyz and Karakalpak.Kazakh is an agglutinative language, and it employs vowel harmony.-Geographic distribution:...
) name meaning "
wild horseThe wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes both the domesticated horse subspecies as well as the undomesticated Tarpan and the Przewalski's Horse. The Tarpan became extinct in the 19
th century, and the Przewalski's Horse was saved from the brink of extinction and...
".
Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus
, also known as Eurasian wild horse) is an extinctIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
subspecies of wild horseThe wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes both the domesticated horse subspecies as well as the undomesticated Tarpan and the Przewalski's Horse. The Tarpan became extinct in the 19
th century, and the Przewalski's Horse was saved from the brink of extinction and...
. The last individual of this subspecies died in captivity in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a 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 breedingSelective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains which 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 backBreeding 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 of a domesticated breed, which may still be present in the larger gene pool of the overall species or other interbreedable species.In Domestic animals...
). The breeds that resulted included the
Heck horseHeck 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 or Stroebel's horse, and a derivation of the
KonikThe Konik or Polish primitive horse is a small horse, a kind of semi-wild pony, 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
grulloGrullo 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
The name "tarpan" or "tarpani" is from a
Turkic languageThe Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty 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 by some...
(
KyrgyzKyrgyz or Kirghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...
or
KazakhKazakh is a Turkic language closely related to Kyrgyz and Karakalpak.Kazakh is an agglutinative language, and it employs vowel harmony.-Geographic distribution:...
) name meaning "
wild horseThe wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes both the domesticated horse subspecies as well as the undomesticated Tarpan and the Przewalski's Horse. The Tarpan became extinct in the 19
th century, and the Przewalski's Horse was saved from the brink of extinction and...
". The Tatars and
CossackCossacks were originally members of military communities in the uninhabited borderland areas in the steppe that lies North of Black Sea...
s distinguished the wild horse from the feral horse; the latter was called Takja
or Muzin
.
Taxonomy
The tarpan was first described by Johann Friedrich GmelinJohann Friedrich Gmelin was a German naturalist, botanist and entomologist.- 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 VoronezhVoronezh is a large city in southwestern Russia, not far from Ukraine. It is located either side of the Voronezh River, twelve kilometers away from where it flows into the Don. Voronezh is the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast...
. In 1784 Pieter BoddaertPieter 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...
named the species Equus ferus
, referring to Gmelin's description. Unaware of Boddaert's name, Otto AntoniusOtto Antonius was director of the Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna, zoologist, palaeontologist and co-founder of the modern zoological biology.- Biography and Career :...
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 horseThe horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the 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 LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature...
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 NomenclatureThe International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is both a book containing a set of rules and recommendations on the formal naming of animals, and that set itself. Among zoologists it is often referred to simply as "the Code"...
, 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 NomenclatureInternational 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 , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
east to central
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. There are cave drawings of what are believed to be Tarpans
in FranceLascaux 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 Dordogne département. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
and SpainAltamira is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands. It is located near the town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain, 30 km west of the city of Santander...
, 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 wild 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
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is 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
BialowiezaBiałowieża 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
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 horseHeck 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 began a program using
KonikThe Konik or Polish primitive horse is a small horse, a kind of semi-wild pony, 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 were completely successful, although all three resulted in horses with many similarities to the Tarpan.
See also
- Przewalski's Horse
Przewalski's Horse , or Dzungarian Horse, is a rare and endangered subspecies of wild horse native to the steppes of central Asia. In China, the last wild Przewalski's horses were seen in 1966...
- Domestication of the horse
There 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 BC, 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
External links