Showing posts with label horses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horses. Show all posts

Friday, September 5, 2008

Nice Guys Finish First Sometimes

From The Horse, the Wheel, and Language

The female bloodline of modern domesticated horses shows extreme diversity... at least seventy-seven ancestral mares are required to account for the genetic variety in modern population.  Meanwhile, the male aspect of modern horse DNA shows remarkable homogeneity.  It is possible that just a single wild stallion was domesticated.

One male horse.  Many female horses.  Think about it.

Stallions are headstrong and violent... A relatively docile and controllable mare could be found at the bottom of the pecking order in many wild horse bands, but a relatively docile and controllable stallion was an unusual individual--and one that had little hope of reproducing in the wild... From the horse's perspective, humans were the only way he could get a girl.