|
|
Re: Equids
whittet (whittet@shore.net)
18 Dec 1994 19:19:52 GMT
In article <3cgve9$e5t@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, jespah@u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt) says:
>
>In article <3cfp8b$7gg@shore.shore.net>, whittet <whittet@shore.net> wrote:
>>If the North American equus c., reputedly able to maintain itself
>>in one form or another in the Americas for 60 million years,
>>was a wild horse, something like the modern mustang, and the
>>spanish horses introduced as their replacement were rather a
>>different breed, would it be possible that rather than extinction
>>we just have something more like ethnocentrism, wherein the Spanish
>>claim all the horses are theirs, and nobody cares to dispute the issue
>>with them?
>
>Faintly possible. But wouldn't the native Americans have noticed that
>there were wild horses around? Instead, native American oral history
>says that horses arrived very recently.
>
>Also, our American breeds share certain characteristics with the old
>Spanish breeds (for instance, color patterns like overo,
>tobiano, and palomino).
>
>Kathleen
>
This thread in some other groups has produced the interesting comment
from a couple of people that there was considerable press coverage in
Canada during the summer about a well preserved frozen horse, dated to
the late Pleistocene, from either the Yukon or Northwest territories.
Apparently it has not been published in any detail and is still under
study. A second comment from a "life long horsewoman" to the effect that
a "wooly horse" has been observed live, again in northern Canada, seems
to suggest the topic could stand some further research.
>If we increase the size of the penguin until it is the same height as
>the man and then compare the relative brain size, we now find that the
>penguin's brain is still smaller. But, and this is the point, it is
>larger than it *was*. (Monty Python)
|