Equus ferus przewalskii . This rugged little horse was found in Central Asia by Nikolai Mikhailovich Przewalski who was on an expedition in the region in May 1879. The little horses he saw were smart enough to get wind of him and his expedition and flee. Przewalski liked to shoot first and ask questions later. Anything he saw was destined to be shot, crated, and taken home to be stuffed or plunked into the cooking pot. Apparently it was a personal humiliation that he never added a wild horse to his collection.
Przewalski’s horse is a true “wild” horse not a feral horse that descends from domesticated horses. The American Mustangs or Australian Brumbies are descended from domesticated horses. Przewalski’s horse is the last surviving subspecies of true wild horses.
At the start of the 20th Century some of the horses were caught and were given the name of Przewalski’s Horse. The horse was nearly extinct in the wild but after successful reintroductions it has been reclassified as “endangered”. Oddly enough one of the areas where it has been reintroduced is free of humans…the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
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