Animals
Przewalski's Horse
Class: Mammal
Geographical Region: Asia
- Distribution & Habitat
- Description & Behaviour
- Reproduction
- Diet
- Threats & Conservation
- Interesting information
Some of our Przewalski's Horses
Distribution & Habitat
They were once found throughout central Asia in steppe vegetation, shrub land, and plains. Last sighted in the wild in 1968, they are classed as Extinct in the wild but have been reintroduced to their former range from captive bred populations.
Description & Behaviour
The only truly wild horse left in the world, the Przewalski's Horse is stockily built in comparison to domesticated horses, with shorter legs. Weighing around 300kg, their typical height is about 1.3m and length is about 2.1m with a 90cm tail.
Przewalski's Horses live in social groups consisting of a dominant stallion, a dominant lead mare, other mares, and their offspring. Each group has a well-defined home range; during the day they travel within the range, grazing, drinking, using salt licks and dozing. At night, the herd clusters and sleeps for about four hours. Ranges of different herds may overlap without conflict, as the stallions are more protective of their mares than their territory.
Stallions practice a form of scent marking and will establish piles of dung at intervals along routes they normally travel to warn other males of their presence. In addition, when a female in the herd urinates, the stallion will frequently urinate in the same place, to signal her membership in the herd to other males.
Przewalski's horses grow thick, warm coats for the winter, complete with long beards and neck hair. Winter coats are important in the harsh winter desert, where temperatures can be freezing.
Reproduction
Females reach sexual maturity at about two years of age but usually do not breed until they are three years old. Young males do not reach sexual maturity until after three years of age.
Mares’ cycle during the spring and summer months but some can cycle throughout the year. Stallions are able to breed year round. Foals are born 11 – 12 months after conception, which is usually early summer.
They have a lifespan of at least 20 years.
Threats & Conservation
The World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species lists the Przewalski's horse as extinct in the wild. Causes of extinction were hunting, harsh climate, loss of habitat, and loss of water sources to farm animals.
In 1977, the Foundation for the Preservation and Protection of the Przewalski's Horse was founded and an exchange of animals between zoos throughout the world was started. Captive bred animals were subsequently released into protected areas of Mongolia.
Seven horses from Monarto Zoological Park and from Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, New South Wales were successfully returned to the wild in Mongolia in July 1995.
As of 2005, the world's population of Przewalski's horses was about 1,500 animals, with 250 of those being free-ranging. New zoo-bred horses continue to be introduced to the wild population, now located in four reserves in Mongolia and Kazahkstan, as well as the Kalameili Reserve in northern China.
Interesting information
- Przewalski’s Horse is pronounced either "psheh-val-skee", "per-zhuh-val-skee", “sheh-val-skee” or even "prez-val-skee”.
- Also known as the Asian Wild Horse and Mongolian Wild Horse. The Mongolian name for these horses is "takhi," which means "spirit". Horses are central to Mongolian culture, and takhi are a symbol of their national heritage. The Chinese call the Przewalski’s horse "yehmah."
- Most "wild" horses today, such as the American Mustang or the Australian Brumby, are actually feral animals (domestic horses that escaped and reverted to a wild status). There were once several types of equid that had never been successfully domesticated, including the Tarpan, but most have become extinct.
- Przewalski's horses are native to a habitat called the steppe. Until 15,000 years ago, this immense and hardscrabble, sparse grassland habitat stretched from the east coast of Asia to present-day Spain and Portugal. After the last Ice Age, however, the steppe gave way to woods and forests to which the Przewalski's horses were not well adapted. By the 19th century the few animals that remained were confined to Mongolia, southern Russia, and Poland.
- Przewalski’s horses have never been tamed for riding.
- The Przewalski's horse is the closest living relative of the domestic horse. Przewalski's horses have 66 chromosomes, two more than domestic horses. The two can breed and produce offspring that have 65 chromosomes.
- These horses were scientifically described in the late 19th century after Polish naturalist Colonel Nikolai Przewalski obtained a skull and hide of this seldom-seen animal and shared them with scientists at a museum in St. Petersburg.
- 30,000-year-old cave paintings found in Spain and France depict a stocky wild horse with Przewalski's horse features.