When something good disappears forever, sadness settles in the soul. It is especially disappointing if what is irretrievably lost is cute living creatures who had every right to live on our planet.
We are talking about the Tarpan horse, which added to the sad list of animals exterminated by the reckless actions of man. It is hard to believe that even a hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago, whole herds of these horses were scampering across the steppes. How did it happen that now there is not one left?
Description of Tarpan Horse
How they looked can only be seen in pictures or old photos.
These horses were 2 species - steppe and forest. Representatives of these species were the size of large ponies. Steppe tarps were distinguished by a strong physique and endurance. They had a short, very thick, slightly wavy coat. In summer, its color ranged from black-brown to dirty yellow, and in winter it became a meaty (silver, gray) color. The back of the horses was decorated with a longitudinal dark stripe. As can be seen from the drawings and photos of the tarpan horses left by our ancestors, they had a short standing mane, which made them look like Przewalski's horses. Their tail was short, their legs were slender, with zebroid marks. Tarpan hooves were highly durable, so they did not need horseshoes. The height of the horses at the withers ranged from 136 to 140 cm, and their body length did not exceed 150 cm.
The Tarpan forest horse was very similar in appearance to the steppe, but did not possess such endurance. This is easily explained by the peculiarities of their habitats - in the forests it was not necessary to carry out lengthy transitions in search of food that steppe horses made.
The tarpan head was hunchbacked and relatively thick, and the ears were erect and spiky.
Habitat
From the Turkic language “tarpan” can be translated as “fly forward”. These animals were exactly as fast as the wind. The Tarpan steppe horse in VII-VIII could be seen in large numbers on the plains and plateaus of many European countries (in the southern and southeastern regions), in Western Siberia, on the lands of present-day Kazakhstan. There were many of them in the Voronezh region and in Ukraine.
Forest tarpans lived in Central Europe. They were massively found in the forests of Poland, East Prussia, Lithuania, Belarus. According to Strabo (I century BC), tarpan lived even in the Alps and on the plains of Spain.
Lifestyle, behavior
We heard that the forest Tarpan horses were the most cautious and very shy animals. They lived in small groups, in which there could be several males (most often, one) and many females. They ate grass, young branches of trees and shrubs, they could eat mushrooms and berries.
The steppe tarps were also very shy, extremely wild, tamed with great difficulty. People caught mainly pregnant mares and small foals who had not yet learned to run fast. Having lived in captivity for some time, they fled as soon as they had such an opportunity. Due to their small growth in chores, they were not very readily used, especially as riding horses.
Steppe tarpan lived in large herds, in which there were 100 individuals or more. Often matured males led the mares away and formed their own small “harems”. They were very caring "sultans", never ate at the same time as females, but held an observation post and ensured that the "ladies" were not in any danger, guarded them on their way to a watering place and pasture.
Tarpan could do without water for a long time. To quench their thirst, they needed the morning dew, which they licked from the grass.
Pedigree
When the last ice age ended (about 10 thousand years ago), hundreds of thousands of horses lived on the flat territories and plateaus of Asia and Europe. Scientists attribute all to one species - a wild horse. The ancestors of the tarpan are precisely these animals.
This species in the scientific world is called Equus ferus. According to the taxonomy, it belongs to the genus Horse (Equus). It has three subspecies:
- Przewalski's horse.
- Tarpan.
- Domestic horse.
The separation between the first two subspecies occurred about 40 - 70 thousand years ago.
Scientists consider Tarpanov the ancestors of our domestic horses. Now their descendants obtained by repeated crosses can be seen in many farms. There is no such data on the crossing of Przhevalsky's horses with domestic ones.
Tarpan History
After the ice age, when there were still relatively few people, wild horses inhabited vast territories. In search of food, their numerous herds often migrated along the steppes from region to region. Cro-Magnons hunted for them for meat, as evidenced by dozens of cave paintings.
As the number of people increased, herds of wild horses decreased. The reason for this was not so much the extermination of animals as the agricultural activity of our distant ancestors. They plowed the steppes, built settlements, taking away their natural pastures from animals.
Gradually, herds of wild horses were reduced from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of individuals.
Przhevalsky’s horses migrated to the Mongolian steppes, and tarpans remained on the territory of Europe and partially Kazakhstan.
Why exterminated
It is believed that there are several reasons for this:
- In winter, wild tarpan horses could not find enough food under the snow, so they often ate hay stored by people for the needs of their households.
- Small, but stately stallions during the rut could lead home mares.
- Tarpan meat was considered a delicacy, so they were actively hunted.
These underlying causes led to the extinction of small wild horses. It is known that monks loved tarpan meat very much. There is a document that testifies to this. So, Pope George III wrote to the abbot of a monastery that he allowed him to eat meat of both domestic and wild horses, and now asks to forbid to do this.
The tarpans were very fast, not every horse could keep up with them. People have found a way to solve this problem. They began to hunt small horses in the winter, because they could not develop high speed in deep snow, they quickly got tired. If hunters noticed a herd of tarps, they surrounded unhappy animals on their frisky stallions and killed. There are frequent cases when in the heat of wild excitement all individuals — adults and children — were destroyed.
By 1830, these horses lived only in the Black Sea steppes. But there they were not saved. In 1879, the last steppe tarpan on the planet, living in nature, was killed near the village of Agayman. It is noteworthy that this happened only 35 km from the Askania Nova Nature Reserve. The last forest tarpan was shot even earlier - in 1814. It happened on the territory of the current Kaliningrad region.
Tarpans in zoos
Not all of our ancestors were cruel. Many people tried to keep their appearance, so they placed tarps in zoological parks. So, in the Moscow Zoo for a long time kept a mare caught near Kherson. She died here in the late 1880s. Wild horses lived in the Poltava province. The last tarpan on the planet died on an estate near Mirgorod. It happened in 1918. The skull of this stallion is in Moscow, at the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, and the skeleton is in St. Petersburg, at the Zoological Institute.
Polish conics
In the Polish town of Zamosc, in the local menagerie, wild tarps also lived. However, in 1808 they were all distributed to the local population. As a result of numerous crosses with domestic horses, a breed of Polish conics appeared. Outwardly, these animals are very similar to a wild tarpan horse. The photo presented in the article confirms this.
Koniks are small horses with a height at the withers of up to 135 cm. The color of their hair is mossy gray, their legs are dark, and there is a longitudinal dark strip on their backs. Conics belong to tarpan horses. Nowadays they live in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
Hake horses
Another attempt to revive the tarps was made by the German zoologists Brothers Heck. In 1930, they began work at the Munich Zoo. The first foal of Hake's horse, which looks very much like a tarpan, was born in 1933. Adult individuals at the withers can reach 140 cm. Their body is covered with very thick very short hair, the color of which varies from brown to mossy. In summer, horses become light. However, genetic studies have shown that they have little in common with wild tarps.
