Horses return home

1991/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ekologia

This horse, known to the Mongolese as takhi, is pottoka shaped and brown in color.

Equus przewalskii

This is the rarest horse in the world. This horse, which lived in southwestern Mongolia, was declared disappeared in 1960.

But in some zoos of the world more than 1,000 animals of this species have been created and raised. In three zoos in the UK there are approximately 100 animals. Therefore, an international group wants to bring these horses to their territory of origin.

This horse, known to the Mongolese as takhi, is pottoka shaped and brown in color. Explorer Nikolai Przewalski killed one of these horses in Mongolia in 1870 and transferred the remains of the corpse to the St. Petersburg Museum. There it was catalogued as a new species. This type of horse has two chromosomes more than a normal horse ( equus caballus).

The Mongolese scientists have formed a national commission to recover the tachi horse and together with the world organization for the care of the przewalski horse, they have been working for more than ten years for the takhi to return to Gobi.

If you want to preserve this special breed, you have to create a special ecosystem in Gobi. If not, this horse can descend again until its disappearance. Different phases are foreseen for the replenishment of the horse, but the most dangerous is the initial one, since it will show the adaptive capacity of the horse. After this phase comes the reproduction of the horse. Its image can be ten years and it is expected that after this period the number of horses will be quite high.