18 Facts About Przewalski's horse

Przewalski's horse, called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse, is a rare and endangered horse originally native to the steppes of Central Asia.

Several genetic characteristics of Przewalski's horse differ from what is seen in modern domestic horses, indicating neither is an ancestor of the other.

Przewalski's horse was long considered the only remaining truly wild horse, in contrast with the American Mustang or the Australian brumby, which are instead feral horses descended from domesticated animals.

Przewalski's horse is stockily built, smaller, and shorter than its domesticated relatives.

Przewalski's horse was formally described as a novel species in 1881 by Ivan Semyonovich Polyakov.

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Early sequencing studies of DNA revealed several genetic characteristics of Przewalski's horse that differ from what is seen in modern domestic horses, indicating neither is ancestor of the other, and supporting the status of Przewalski horses as a remnant wild population not derived from modern domestic horses.

The researchers suggested that because Botai horse domestication was relatively short-lived before they again became feral, the Przewalski's horse retained more wild or primitive traits than did the domestic horse lineage.

Przewalski's horse is stockily built in comparison to domesticated horses, with shorter legs, though being much smaller and shorter than its domesticated relatives.

The legs of Przewalski's horse are often faintly striped, typical of primitive markings.

The hooves of Przewalski's horse are longer in the front and have significantly thicker sole horns than feral horses, an adaptation that improves hoof performance on terrain.

Przewalski's horse has the highest diploid chromosome number among all equine species.

Each kick, groom, tilt of the ear, or other contact with another Przewalski's horse is a means of communicating.

In 1881, the horse received a formal scientific description and was named Equus przevalskii by Ivan Semyonovich Polyakov, based on Przewalski's collection and description, while in 1884, the sole exemplar of the horse in Europe was a preserved specimen in the Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.

The range of Przewalski's horse was limited to the arid Dzungarian Basin in the Gobi Desert.

Since the oocyte used was from a domestic Przewalski's horse, this was an example of interspecies SCNT.

Somatic cell donor was a Przewalski's horse stallion named Kuporovic, born in the UK in 1975, and relocated three years later to the US, where he died in 1998.

Breeding of this individual in the 1980s had already substantially increased the genetic diversity of the captive population, after he was discovered to have more unique alleles than any other Przewalski's horse living at the time, including otherwise-lost genetic material from two of the original captive founders.

Przewalski's horse's ideas led to the creation of the Frozen Zoo as a genetic library.