good morning John - this time for
another bizarre beast this time I've
taken a different tactic and I am
approaching an animal that you are
familiar with but that is way weirder
than I thought just because something as
common doesn't mean it's not bizarre and
John horses horses they can't puke they
can't breathe through their mouths I
mean I'm not saying they aren't
beautiful animals though in part they
were bred to be beautiful it's important
to note that there are kinda no wild
horses now there's two reasons for that
kind of first there are lots of feral
horses these are wild individuals of a
domesticated species and there are tens
of thousands of feral horses in North
America the second reason it's a kinda
is more interesting in Mongolia there's
a species of horse that went extinct in
the wild but has now been reintroduced
it's called Frizzle skis horse or the
taki and it's often called the last wild
horse but first this probably isn't the
horse that modern horses were
domesticated from at least not entirely
and second genetic studies indicate that
the talkee might actually be a feral
descendent of an ancient domesticated
horse but here's the thing for thousands
of years wild horse herds and
domesticated horse herds existed in the
same spaces so there isn't really a
clear sharp line between domesticated
horses and wild horses but the taki with
its short legs and zebra like mane is
likely a good approximation of what
horses looked like before we got our
hands on whether or not modern
domesticated horses are descended from
Priss well ski's horse may be some but
probably not entirely a big piece of
that would also be Tarpons a wild horse
that is now entirely extinct and maybe
we have a photo of but we definitely
have a drawing of one single drawing
that's that's what we have or we could
look to cave paintings because these are
actually the only images we have of pre
domestication horses now I often think
of horses as being a eurasian thing but
they actually evolved in North America
before barely getting out over the
Bering Land Bridge before going extinct
and then we humans brought them back
because they were useful and then they
escaped and became wild and so that
famous North American Mustang is kind of
an invasive species but it's also kind
of a reintroduced speed
as far as I know that is the only
example of that ever happening in
history well that is very cool but the
thing that really freaks me out about
horses is their legs okay a thing you
have to understand all terrestrial
vertebrates have a really similar body
plan we have two four limbs and we have
two hind limbs and we have a middle
trunk and we have a head on top and at
the end of each limb we have feet okay
in a few species there are hands which
are just like feet that you don't walk
on or in bats you have feet that you fly
with birds their feet just became this
like little nubbin on the end of their
arms it sounds strange but to an
evolutionary physiologist like hands are
just feet that you type with whatever I
don't have time to talk about how weird
hands are the point is there's a very
similar body plan and in all animals in
us we have bone bone foot in ostriches
bone bone foot in mice bone bone foot in
Tyrannosaurus Rex bone bone foot but
then you got a horse leg it's bone bone
bone bone bone what where is it where is
the foots a species in Equus which
includes horses and zebras and donkeys
are just not closely related to any
living species but in the fossil record
we can see their toes becoming less and
less necessary until they are left
walking around on just one big toe those
two top bones are leg bones all of the
rest of these bones are foot they're
foot bones and the horse hoof is just a
big old toenail so the next time you see
some beautiful galloping stallions just
note they're all just walking around on
one finger if you look close enough John
everything is a bizarre beast so next
time we will return to some beasts you
are less familiar with John I'll see you
on Tuesday