Talk:Mustang/Archive 7

Ancient Ecology
I agree these things are probably correct and I don't have strong feelings bout the North American horses' palaeontological taxonomy but I would favour adding something on the ancient ecology of North America generally, and the extinct horses within that, as far as is known, to give some actual "context" to the section following. The following section should also mention some of the other changes humans have wrought on the fauna, flora, and climate, including the loss of bison (wolves are also briefly mentioned) and the gain of donkeys. GPinkerton (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I copied this over. To sum this all up: Domestic horses first began going feral in the Grassland Steppes of Texas and California. The horses brought over from Spain were well suited as the climate was very similar to what they were adapted to. They were taken north in the northern Great Plains, where most of the bison were, but the horse population didn't explode there, probably because there was significant die-off during the winters. They were killed off by the thousands when Texas was settled.

As the more arid part of the West was settled in the late 1800's ranchers developed water sources for their livestock. The lack of these sources had prevented large animals from occupying these areas, about the largest that was well suited was the antelope. (If you look at the blown up version of the Fremont-Gibbs-Smith map I have on my user page, Jedediah Smith had documented where he had observed "buffalo" and "wild horses" during his extensive travels in west in the 1820's; there is very little overlap to where mustangs currently occupy.) The ranchers also allowed their horses, which were a variety of breeds more from northern Europe than the Iberian Penninsula, to roam free, gathering and breaking them when they needed them. When the Taylor Grazing Act was passed, requiring ranchers to pay fees for grazing on public lands, the ranchers did not claim the horses, but continued to gather them as before. They also controlled their numbers, to keep them from competing with the livestock they paid to graze.

Burros have a different history. They are mostly associated with mining areas in the Mojave desert. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 23:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * This is all interesting information and I'm left wondering why I don't get it from reading the article. However, it doesn't deal with a lot of the history. When you say "settled" you mean settled by European colonists. Obviously by the 1800s humans had inhabited the West for many millennia and the 19th century inhabitants had been using horses and living alongside "wild" ones for centuries, so I'm not sure what a snapshot of populations in the 1820s, fully 400 years after the onset of colonization, could prove about the relative distribution of bison in the centuries prior, during which the bison was already being hunted to extinction in parts of its range. (Also the map is labelled 1840s, not 20s but the research might be older.) Where does the idea that Domestic horses first began going feral in the Grassland Steppes of Texas and California come from? It seems bizarre, given that the first European settlements were in Florida and (modern) Mexico decades before any European set eyes on California. Also, suitability or otherwise for the American climate is probably worth mentioning, if a source is available. For one thing, the idea bison and mustang ranges did not overlap in historical times (if true) is exactly the kind of thing I mean by talking about the ecology of the mustang and the extirpation of the bison. Ditto the burros, North America's other feral equine. Surely if the mustang is supposed to be the heir to prehistoric American horses, and the ranch cattle are heir to the American bison, then how come the cattle and horses are now competing for pasture, is bovines can't live where the equines can? (I take the point about water management, but still.) These things are very unclear, and while I know there is a separate article for feral horses in North America, these points relate to mustangs and the North American West specifically. GPinkerton (talk) 00:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * "This is all interesting information and I'm left wondering why I don't get it from reading the article." Because it was like pulling teeth to get in the information that is in there.  The whole time I tried I was obstructed with accusations of COI, not maintaining NPOV, you name it.  Lynn (SLW) (talk) 00:37, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The Fremont-Gibbs-Smith map is an annotation of the now lost Smith map on the 1840's Fremont map, done by Gibbs in 1851. Long story, but it documents Smith's 1820's travels.


 * "Where does the idea that Domestic horses first began going feral in the Grassland Steppes of Texas and California come from? It seems bizarre, given that the first European settlements were in Florida and (modern) Mexico decades before any European set eyes on California." J. Frank Dobie


 * "Surely if the mustang is supposed to be the heir to prehistoric American horses, and the ranch cattle are heir to the American bison, then how come the cattle and horses are now competing for pasture, is bovines can't live where the equines can? (I take the point about water management, but still.)" No, neither cattle, sheep, nor horses could survive in most places in the western desert without human intervention.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 00:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * What happened was, back in the early part of the 20th century there were several authors, Dobie, Wyden, Roe, that wrote good histories on Mustangs, but they didn't talk about the horses in the Great Basin because at the time they weren't considered mustangs, but free-roaming ranch horses. Then some 40 years later in 1970, Hope Ryden came along and wrote her book based on her knowledge of one herd:  The Pryor Mountain, which is not in the Great Basin, and has a completely different history than most horses there do. But, she applied what she knew about the Pryor horses to all "wild" horses, and given the dearth of info of the origin of horses in the Great Basin, it was never really challenged. So, what she wrote became the narrative: the were thousands, if not millions of Spanish Horses running around the Great Basin when settlers arrived there, but they killed most of them and turned their non-Spanish horses out to breed with the rest.  It didn't happen that way, and books are finally coming out telling the real story.  But the abuse I put up getting this article to the point it is was mind numbing.  If I appear to push back too hard, it's to make it very plain I'm not putting up with any more. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 11:37, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

, here's my take: All of this is very interesting, but the reason the other editor's version hasn't been getting in is because some (not all) of it is POV-pushing or OR based on straw man arguments no one has made. (I am interested in the books are finally coming out telling the real story — citation needed, please?) I have been repeatedly frustrated at the misrepresentation of what I have been trying to do here to keep this article balanced between the cattle industry POV and the animal rights POV. I can guarantee you that "abuse" has definitely come my way, including off-wiki attacks and doxxing. Montanabw (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC) But, that aside, to wit: I could go on, but this hits some of the main points. Montanabw (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) The issue that both Lynn and I agree on is that there is a population problem today with Mustangs/Free-roaming horses, and particularly in Nevada. There are tens of thousands of horse that have been removed from the range and kept in holding facilities, the "adopt a horse" program can't absorb them all, and on the range, even if rangeland allocated for wild horses is increased, they will reproduce to fill land available because they have no natural predators in the region. Some kind of population control is needed. The rest of the drama centers on the solutions, which are discussed in the article.
 * No, there were not "millions of Spanish Horses running around the Great Basin". This is the SYNTH and OR claims that have created dissention in this article for years. "Millions of horses" in the southern Great Plains by the mid-1800s, yes possibly, and that can be attributed to Frank Dobie. Hundreds of thousands later, yes, documented in the 1930s with the Taylor Grazing Act.
 * 1) The note that there weren't a lot of feral horses in the Great Basin in the early to mid-1800s is true, better grazing elsewhere, no mystery there. But today the vast majority of feral horses  now live in Nevada is also true, basically because they were pushed onto the most marginal grazing land by the cattle industry. And this was politics, not biology. (This was partly because the better rangeland elsewhere had already been cleared of feral horses, and in a few cases cleared specifically to prevent them from coming under the Act. Looking at 1970 maps showing all the original HAs assessed to determine if they should become HMAs is fascinating...)
 * 2) It's a red herring to make a big deal out of the difference between a "Mustang" and a "free-roaming ranch horse". In the west of the 1800s and into the mid 1900s, most horses just ran in semi-feral herds, were rounded up, sorted, branded, and most of the colts were gelded, the ones old enough to be broke to ride were kept behind, the mares and youngester turned back out with a stallion of some sort deemed worth being allowed to breed on, and the circle of life continued. Some horses not rounded up became completely feral, and when they occasionally got gathered, the untamable ones were usually shot or later, shipped to canneries. See Wild Horse Annie.
 * 3) This is also political. "Wild" sometimes meant "Indian Horse" native-owned herds were often deemed "wild" and shot. But if it was a rancher's mostly-feral herd, they weren't "wild" they were just "range horses."
 * 4) Ancestry as "Pure" Spanish breeding is also kind of a red herring, though interesting, and the herds with mostly Spanish blood markers are of particular preservation interest. Most feral horses were of Spanish ancestry until settlers started coming west from the eastern USA in the mid-1800s, at which time everything they brought with them started crossbreeding with the existing feral populations, and the word "Mustang" was a generic term; today very few bands have primarily Spanish ancestry, though a lot of the other have developed a similar landrace phenotype because of natural selection and because the foundation animals were other breeds of light saddle horses.
 * 5) It's utter nonsense that winter kills wiped out modern horses in the Northern Great Plains. The horse evolved as Ice Age megafauna and thrived in Eurasia in Ukraine and other cold, dry regions. Again, this is the OR and SYNTH that I have been dealing with for years. The horse did just fine in the northern Great Plains as it happens to be the area most like the ancient Ice Age grasslands where equus developed. The vast numbers of horses that were found in Montana and Wyoming clearly demonstrated this.
 * 6) Horses survive without human intervention, and that's the problem. They multiply rapidly.  Populations grew faster in Texas because the climate was milder and there were fewer natural predators. Also keep in mind that the same Civil War situation that led to millions of unbranded feral cattle  ("Mavericks") running around Texas (leading to Cattle drives in the United States) also impacted horse populations. California had thousands of horses, but that's a different issue, most were at least claimed, if not tamed.


 * Really, the only thing worth responding in all this is the implication that I doxxed MBW. Didn't happen, but this is one of the worst of the plethera of accusations that has been thrown at me, so let's get it straight:


 * Several years ago MBW made an unsuccessful RfA. Shortly after it failed, someone referred me to a thread on the Wikipediocracy message board that discussed the RfA.  It was not very flattering to her, but that's what happens when you make enemies.  A few posts in the thread referred to her by her first name, and discussed her line of work.  Big deal. I know her first name, and her line of work is on her user page anyway. I joined the WO message board after all this had taken place.  I have never used her first name, either here or on WO.  Others have, but you won't find one instance of my doing it, because I simply haven't.  So, this accusation is just another instance of the abusive accusations I have put up with.   Lynn (SLW) (talk) 22:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Necroing the thread to gloat about drama on this talk page is never a good look. We are here to discuss the content of the article, not to antagonise other editors over past feuds. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for bringing that to my attention. And now I know my other edits are being stalked too!   Montanabw (talk) 23:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Just want to make the point: I didn't link to the thread where she was outed.


 * But seriously, it you were so upset over being doxxed, why are you more concerned that your edits are seen, rather than this?Lynn (SLW) (talk) 00:45, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

God American politics is weird! GPinkerton (talk) 23:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , no argument from me. The root of the Mustang drama really is the economics of the cattle industry and the natural resources extraction industry.  Everything else is a sideshow.  Montanabw (talk) 23:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * True, you weren't the original person who doxxed me on WO in 2015. But you were the one who started personalizing the issue here, complaining about "abuse" above, and opened the door. On WO, you definitely showed up and fed the fire in your replies to threads about me there, and if you didn't call me by my real name, you DID call me "that psychotic bitch." (Which seems to be your actual belief) So yes, it does color my view of you. I have repeatedly made sincere efforts to extend an olive branch to you and negotiate a truce on WP, as you have some useful perspectives to offer; it's the common ground between different views that creates good NPOV. We probably agree on about 80% of the facts here, we mostly disagree on philosophy, tone, weight, and nuance. That and your desire to insert your own theories into these articles where the sources aren't there. So once again, we are now arguing over what amounts to one lousy paragraph. Let's bury the hatchet, get the science correct and on point, and then just hope to God we can keep this article stable for another two years.  Montanabw (talk) 23:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Uh, not only was I not the original person who doxxed you, I never doxed you. If you knew that, why did you accuse me of it? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 23:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Oh, and btw, I just did a search on WO. It's another false accusation that I called you a "psychotic bitch." 115 matches for the word "psychotic" and none of them made by me.  Nor were any of them in reference to you. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 23:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Possible at present. I have contacted the administrator of WO on a couple of occasions, requesting the most inflammatory and most doxxing material be removed, and he has been gracious enough to do so. Montanabw (talk) 15:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Do not sit there and whine about the olive branches you extend, when they are really nothing but poison ivy, wrapped in flimsy paper that will fall apart at the slightest pressure. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 01:04, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

You do need to AGF, I have made peace with other editors where we initially had conflict. People do not have to like or trust each other to collaborate effectively. In fact, disagreement can, if managed in a respectful and adult manner, result in excellent Wikipedia articles. I remember and value such collaboration when I played a very small role in the FAC for Richard Nixon. Montanabw (talk) 15:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

More Taxonomy
From the Barron article:

''The name E. ferus was proposed by Gentry et al. [110] to differentiate wild caballines from domestic forms (i.e., E. caballus). The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has approved this proposal [111, 112], and “implementation of the ruling means that names based on wild populations will continue to be used for wild species and will include those for domestic forms if these are considered conspecific” (p. 649 in [112]). We follow this proposal in the present study; however, we point out that there is still some disagreement about the status of E. ferus as a wild rather than a feral horse [113].''

This is in conflict with what is currently in the article. Basically, it's pretty much stating that, E. ferus is not the same species as domestic horses, but that, by definition, it is the same species as Przewalskii's horse. It's also implying the E. ferus doesn't exist, because there's evidence that Przewalskii's horse is another example of a domesticated horse gone feral. So, we don't have three modern subspecies of E. ferus. And, if it becomes generally accepted that Przewalskii's horse is a subspecies of E. caballus, does that mean that we're going to get a new species name for the late Pleistocene North American horses, and will that name carry over to any early old world horses that may be ancestral to domestic horses? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 16:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * This source, which is from 2002, is off-topic. Heintzman 2017 is a very good study, particularly on the Stilt-Legged horse, Haringtonhippus. Weinstock is still good science on the caballine or "stout-legged" horse.  The Barron study is solid as far as it goes, which is a morpological study of cheek teeth, again looking at the caballine and non-caballine lineages. Barron does not stand for the proposition that equus is "outside the ancestry of modern horses."  Here's the point: "Based on the morphological and molecular data analyzed, a caballine (Equus ferus) and a non-caballine (E. conversidens) species were identified from different localities across most of the Western Interior. A second non-caballine species (E. cedralensis) was recognized from southern localities based exclusively on the morphological analyses of the cheek teeth. Notably the separation into caballine and non-caballine species was observed in the Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of ancient mtDNA as well as in the geometric morphometric analyses of the upper and lower premolars." It is clear that the caballine equids that inhabited prehistoric North America are the ancestors of the modern horse. To say otherwise is cherry-picking and misrepresenting the data for the purpose of some sort of claim that the modern horse is not related to its ancient ancestors. It's possible that this can be phrased more clearly, and given that  seems to be following this discussion with a neutral point of view, I welcome further comments.  Montanabw (talk) 17:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, to clarify taxonomy: I'm not a taxonomist, but when I was working on the GAN for [horse]] (which took a couple years to get done) as well as the wild horse and Equus (genus) articles, the editors on those articles discussed the question with some of Wikipedia's taxonomy editors.  I became aware that there is a debate amongst taxonomists over how classification works and a couple different schools of thought.  But the consensus on the horse articles was that we explained to the reader that e. ferus is the ancestral, no longer extant, wild horse.  Its descendants include three subspecies that existed into the historic period: e. ferus caballus (the modern domestic horse) and e. ferus przewalskii (Przewalski's horse), as well as the now extinct e. ferus ferus (Tarpan). What is newly questioned is if, in fact, even the Przewalski was actually domesticated (they definitely tried), thus losing its long-believed status of being the "only truly wild horse left in the world."  Which is a really interesting discussion (So now, do they preserve the Przewalski horses in the Gobi desert as a native species because they've been in the region for a long time, regardless of domestication status, or because someone tried and failed to fully domesticate them 6000 years ago, do they now call them an invasive species?) but also outside the scope of the Mustang article. So be careful of making overbroad assumptions. Montanabw (talk) 18:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * This argument over taxonomy is completely irrelevant from where I'm standing. If there're sources on the relative ecology of these prehistoric horses and feral horses today, let's say so. Otherwise, whether or not this or that bone belongs to this or that scientist's idea of what constitutes a species in this context (there is no set definition and it's unlikely there ever will be) is completely irrelevant. The whole question of E. caballus/E. ferus caballus[/przewalskii] is completely semantic and the ICZN decision allowing the two separate names to be valid is just a compromise that means neither side is necessarily wrong or right. It also applies to nearly 20 other domesticated "species" of animals and their wild "ancestors". It can't be used to make a point about horses and North America, and it certainly doesn't relate specifically to mustangs alone. What's also interesting, in the context of North American grazing megafauna, is that while burros (but not their origin) are mentioned 30+ times on his page, and cattle are mentioned a dozen times, the word bison appears only once. Surely the disappearance of the bison from the mustangs' present range is worth noting as being infinitely more relevant to land-use issues and competition between herbivores in the modern Great Plains than is Haringtonhippus, which, extinct for a very long time, was probably greatly overshadowed by the bovine megafauna of America. The idea that "the caballine equids that inhabited prehistoric North America are the ancestors of the modern horse" is no less irrelevant that saying "the Tikitherids that inhabited prehistoric Pangaea are the ancestors of the modern horse". The direct ancestors of the mustang are Eurasian domestic horses. That's all that needs to be said here. To say otherwise is cherry-picking and misrepresenting the data for the purpose of some sort of claim that the mustangs are related to their (far-distant) ancient ancestors more than are other horses and feral horses of the Americas, which is of course not true. As far as LynnWysong's point goes, yes, it's commonly accepted that E. ferus [ferus] [i.e. true wild horses] do not exist and have not existed since the 19th century and probably long before. (Just like wild cattle.) It's worth noting that wild equines all have straight, stand up manes, and extinct North American horses were no different. Mustangs, descendants of domestic Eurasian horses, with their domestic horse-type manes, do not resemble wild horses. This glaring fact is omitted altogether in the article. GPinkerton (talk) 17:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Equus cedralensis was recognised as a junior synonym of H. francisci in a paper studying 336 teeth from Mexico, which found no statistically significant difference between the two groups, and the similarity between both groups had been noted before regardless. Heintzman et al, 2017 describes the North American caballine species as "highly variable" which has caused much of the taxonomic confusion, as the morphology of the Pleistocene caballine population were probably just as variable as contemporary mustang populations. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * "It is clear that the caballine equids that inhabited prehistoric North America are the ancestors of the modern horse. To say otherwise is cherry-picking and misrepresenting the data for the purpose of some sort of claim that the modern horse is not related to its ancient ancestors." The "caballine equids" in question are the ones classified as E. ferus in the Barron article, and it is not clear they are the ancestors of the modern horses. It may be stretch to say they aren't ancestral, but I'm not the one that put that in the article, so I can't defend it.  pinging :: to explain why they said that.


 * Rather than engage with an edit war with MBW by taking out her equally inaccurate statement, I'm pulling the paragraph here, and suggesting a more accurate reflection of the Barron article:


 * The taxonomic horse family "Equidae" evolved in North America 55 million years ago. By the end of the Late Pleistocene, there were two lineages of the Equine family present in North America, the "caballine" and "stilt-legged", which have been referred to by various species names. One 2017 ancient DNA study tentatively classified the North American caballine horses as the same species (Equus ferus) as Przewalskii's horse, but with a caveat that Przewalskii's horse possibly should be classified with domestic horses, Equus caballus, indicating that the North American caballines are closely related to domestic horses. At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the non-caballines went extinct and the caballine was extirpated from the Americas, possibly due to a changing climate or the impact of newly arrived human hunters. The youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas dates between between 7,600 and 10,500 years old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LynnWysong (talk • contribs)


 * First, See my above comment re E. ferus and E. ferus ferus (two different critters) that was inserted with an edit conflict The direct ancestors of the mustang are Eurasian domestic horses Kind of.  To be precise, the most direct ancestors of the modern mustang started with Spanish horses up to about 1700, at which point horses from other nations of Europe started to be added to the mix, and by 1900, everything but the kitchen sink was running around loose, crossbreeding at will, creating localized landraces, which we now call by the collective name "Mustang." Other feral horses of the eastern United States also started with various Colonial Spanish Horse ancestors, mixed with whatever came after.  But no, we aren't (at least I'm not) making the argument that mustangs are related to their (far-distant) ancient ancestors more than are other horses and feral horses of the Americas Heck I'm making the opposite point: ALL domestic horses, descend from the same ancient ancestor, the caballine horses of the Americas. So, the real point of the dicussion is to examine the role of the Mustang in the western United States, and whether free-roaming horses in general should be treated as 1. (one extreme) invasive pests to be exterminated; 2. (Current law and middle ground) a protected class of animals, whatever they are (once-native or not), to be managed along with other aspects of the ecosystem in which they live; or 3. (the other extreme) A returned native species that should just run amok with minimal management. I hold to position 2, but think that the other positions need to be discussed because they are like the abortion issue, with very emotional advocates on all sides who don't like to see middle ground. NPOV and more NPOV.  Montanabw (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * You know, if you would just stick to the discussion and leaving out all the extraneous discussion and histrionics over NPOV, it would be a lot clearer and you would come off as more rationale.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 18:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Horse Manes

 * Let me also be clear: the ancestral wild horse, e. ferus is NOT the same as the "Tarpan," e. ferus ferus. There actually is minimal if any evidence that e. ferus ferus was an ancestor of the modern horse (Hence the different trinominal name). As far as what they looked like, we can say how big they were and what kind of body build they had, but the rest is speculative. We know that the laid-over mane appears to be a consequence of domestication, but some so-called "Tarpans" in the 19th century appeared to have laid-over manes, and the historic Appaloosa breed was once noted (negatively) for having a scrawny, stand up mane and a "rat tail" (until they bred it out of them), as do most domesticated asses and donkeys.  Montanabw (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The difference in trinomial name is just an inheritance from Linnaeus and a concession to those would have caballus refer to domestic (and feral) horses and ferus to wild ones. The point of domestic donkeys having stand-up manes is irrelevant; we're talking about horses. The 19th century "tarpan" is very likely nothing but an Asian equivalent of the mustang, so not much can be drawn from its mane-type in late historical times. We know that 30,000 years or so ago, wild Eurasian horses had stand-up manes because that is the way humans 30,000 years ago recorded their appearance. We know the first domesticated horses 10,0000 years ago had stand-up manes because their descendants (i.e. Przewalski's horse) still have stand-up manes. I'm deeply sceptical about appaloosas with stand-up manes; what is the source for that and what would the explanation be? In any case, mustangs don't have stand-up manes, but we can be sure the extinct North American horse of yore had them, so that's one difference (among many). GPinkerton (talk) 18:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with you about the 19th-century Tarpan not necessarily being a "true" wild horse. And I think the issue of stand-up manes is getting into the weeds. ( See Bennett on the Appaloosa manes, but that was just a throwaway comment...I remember the old style Appies with very thin manes that were almost impossible to lay over because they didn't grow worth beans and just stuck up like a kid's cowlick. They used to just roach them. Their tails were short and thin. ) Any thick and relatively short mane will stand up straight, like the domesticated Mongolian horse— they groom the Fjord horse that way on purpose.  It's a primitive trait, agreed, but not "proof" one way or the other (see, e.g. the  Heck horse, the Konik and other "recreated Tarpans." I've started a new section below  Montanabw (talk) 18:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The domestic horse likely descends from an ancestral tarpan population domesticated by the Yamnaya culture. I know that the initial population size for the domestic cow is suggested to be around 60 individuals so there is obviously a genetic bottleneck from the founder population of the domestic horse that will impact genetic results. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , don't call ancestral wild horses "Tarpans." That's a misnomer. No proof the "Tarpan" of eastern Europe was the same horse as was domesticated in what is now Ukraine. Montanabw (talk) 18:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The Tarpan article itself seems to be unsure of the distinction, does "Tarpan" specifically only refer to 18th and 19th century horses in Eastern europe? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The Tarpan article is poor quality and one of many I didn't have the time or energy to fix. It needs a LOT of work! Short answer is that people used to call the ancestral wild horse that was first domesticated a "Tarpan", but the 18th and 19th-century "wild" horses called "Tarpans" probably were not that subspecies of horse.   Montanabw (talk) 19:09, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * On Tarpans, this may help: Don't call me Tarpan and updated notes. For all we know, there was never such a thing as a "Tarpan."  And definitely getting into the weeds...  Montanabw (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Quick note that it was you that brought the word tarpan into discussion and now you're trying to take it out. Fine. E. ferus is fine. GPinkerton (talk) 21:23, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I’m not sure precisely who started what, but the Tarpan article sure hasn’t been tackled by anyone for a long time, in part because of the confusing nomenclature. Montanabw (talk) 16:02, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Article protection

 * I've protected the article temporarily in the Wrong version. There is a need to wait for other editors to chime in, so please feel free to ping anyone whose perspective may be useful to this discussion. many of your personal comments in these threads are unacceptable and you need to strike them. If you can't keep your contributions focused on the content and away from the editor, you need to step away from the topic until you can. --RexxS (talk) 15:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I think we have consensus to move the prehistoric material to its present location. I think the first and last sentences of the section are mostly non-controversial (at least they haven’t been changed). However, the debate has gone completely into the weeds and so we probably need a reset on what to include. I shall ping the editors who have touched bases on this drama, as well as 1-2 past editors who worked on article content (as opposed to talkpage drama). Montanabw (talk) 16:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC) Pinging, , , as well as the peripherally interested and past editors with some interest, , , ,. If I have missed anyone, please add them in. Montanabw (talk) 16:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Hemiauchenia pinged me a few days ago, but I've been too involved in RL to do much. I can now take a look as well. Littleolive oil (talk) 16:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that moving the "prehistoric" discussion to its current location is best, and that a refocus on Equus rather than non-caballines is warranted. - Tim1965 (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Tim1965. Some copyedits to make: Genus, family, and other scientific names do not go in quotation marks, so it should be 'The taxonomic horse family Equidae evolved ...'.  Second, adjectives derived from capitalized taxonomic names are not capitalized; thus, it should be '... there were two lineages of the equine family present in North America ...'. Obscure terms need to be linked: Beringia, Holarctic. There's a run-on sentence in there which can be fixed by changing '... Holarctic species"[98] but in 2011 ...' to '... Holarctic species".[98] However, in 2011 ...'.  Next, '... standardized as to be determined based on ...' is gibberish; just change this to '... standardized by ...'. And '... domestic or wild-type, so currently, domestic horses are classified ...' is improperly punctuated, forming another run-on. Use: '... domestic or wild-type. Thus, domestic horses are currently classified ...'. (Moving currently has the benefit of obviating a comma mess, in what would be '... domestic or wild-type. Thus, currently, domestic horses are classified ...'. The link to Wild type is probably not what we want, as it's about use of that term with a subtly different meaning; we want Wild horse. Also thus reads more encyclopedic in this construction than the conversational so.) This part is mispunctuated (bracketing commas are needed) and inappropriately siding with a near-fringe position that domestic horses are Equus caballus, a separate species, rather than the subspecies Equus ferus caballus: '... domestic horses are classified as a different species Equus caballus from ...'. This would be more sensible as '... domestic horses are usually classified as a subspecies, Equus ferus caballus, from ...'. Next, '... Przewalskii's horse, or Equus ferus.' is misspelled, wrongly treating two populations as identical, picking a side inappropriately (and vaguely) in a three-way taxonomic dispute (between Equus przewalskii, Equus ferus przewalskii, and simply a population of Equus ferus caballus a.k.a. Equus caballus), and needs linking. Just do: '... Przewalski's horse.'  More gibberish and mis-punctuation, and need of linking, and redundancy, and wrong verb tense: 'A later 2017 DNA study, this one done alongside tooth morphology confirmed that the North American caballines are ...' should be 'A 2017 DNA study, done alongside tooth morphology, confirmed that the North American caballines were ...'.  This is just misleading (and misspelled Przewalski's again): 'The study classified the North American caballine horses as the same species (Equus ferus) as Przewalskii's horse, but with a caveat that Przewalskii's horse possibly should be classified with domestic horses.'  That implies, wrongly, that if P.'s horse is reclassified as E. [f.] caballus that this means the ancient North American horses would be, too. Overall, I think the way to fix much of this coat-racking problem, and the misleadingness problems, will be to pare down all the stuff that doesn't really pertain, including repeatedly dwelling on P.'s horse. So, something like this (after fixes to the material preceding this part): '... domestic or wild-type. Thus, domestic horses are usually classified as a subspecies, Equus ferus caballus, of the only remaining horse species, though some taxonomists would put both the domestic horse and the wild Przewalski's horse separately each in a new species. A 2017 DNA study, done alongside tooth morphology, confirmed that the North American caballines were closely related to domestic horses, and classifies them within the same species, Equus ferus, as the domestic horse, but not the same subspecies.'

Ancestry
Okay, so from what I seen, it's pretty well decided that all caballines are the same species. Right now they're divided into two species, E caballus and E. ferus, with domestic horses in the prior, and everything else in the latter. I expect that's going to change, and all are going to be listed under E. caballus as different sub-species. The question is, which one's going to be called the ancestral horse? It's not necessarily one that came out of North America, but may be one that came back to North America. We just don't know yet. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 21:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I just spent the last hour trying to figure out taxonomy and it's enough to make both our heads explode. The Horse article and Equus (genus) and related articles (wild horse, Przewalski's horse, etc.) all use trinominal classification at this point so I think that must be a pretty strong Wikipedia-wide consensus that I'd prefer we not get into, at least not here.  But yes, e. f. caballus is the modern domestic horse.  We can't use a crystal ball to know what the politics of taxonomy are going to decide in the future, and the recent stuff on the Botai horses being related to Przewalski horses was mind-boggling.   Montanabw (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * But to the point here, the bottom line is that equids did not exist in Eurasia until they migrated there from the Americas, which began to happen about 2 million years ago (if think, it's in one of the studies, somewhere) and ended when Beringia closed about 10,000 years ago. At that point, all the equids in North America disappeared for whatever reason. I think we have consensus on that, also.  Montanabw (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * So, it looks to me like we are fighting over a couple sentences. Mine was "two different genera: Equus, also known as the “caballine” or “stout legged horse”; and Haringtonhippus, the “stilt-legged horse”.[98]" and that which followed.  What you wrote might be cited to the right studies, but it's incomprehensible gibberish and goes off into the weeds. I'm going to think about what this needs to say, and then we find the citations that are the best sources for it. Montanabw (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Stop with the "Wikipedia-wide consensus" BS. There's no consensus to not bring articles up to date with the latest official nomenclature, only the lack of will of people to put up with your high-handedness and the ruthless tactics you resort to to keep your articles at "Status quo ante." If you want to let them fade into obsolescence rather than let others work on them, (or at least work on them without you acting like you have final editing rights) fine, but I see no reason to acquiesce on this one.  But, I'll let the three of you work on this for a few days, and give the others the wonderful opportunity of being the target of your baseless accusations to derail discussions where you don't want them to go. You aren't one of Trump's advisor's are you? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 10:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it is a good idea not to edit in the heat of emotion. One reason why I work on this for just a little while each day and then give it a break and return the next day. I am sure that can address the past history of taxonomy drama.  That’s an area I don’t want to tackle.  We could, when the dust settles, have the most respected taxonomy editors review the various horse articles, but that’s getting into the weeds here.   Montanabw (talk) 15:32, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, and this isn't the place, anyway, to get into the details of taxonomic disputes about the domestic horse and about P.'s horse; I've addressed this with suggested revisions, in my post just before this one in a different thread here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

But back on point, I’m thinking now that we may be wise to remove the discussion of the stilt-legged Harringtonhippus altogether, as it too is getting into the weeds, isn’t relevant to this article (beyond prehistoric extinction of all American equids, maybe) and is better discussed at wild horse or equus (genus). I think the best thing to do is for those who want to work on this simply all review the source material again and get an agreement on what researchers know and what they hypothesize. Then craft a brief narrative of what can be agreed upon about the journey of equus from America to Eurasia and then, 10,000 years later, back again. Montanabw (talk) 15:32, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We don't need any details on these two types of extinct N.Am. equid, other than brief mention that there were two.  We should probably link to where they are discussed in detail, though; I forgot to say so in my copy-editing post.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Final draft?
Ok. So, let’s wikignome this and see if we can get it cleaned up to put into the article and close out this round of discussion. Here’s the last version as edited by above, I removed the tq formatting on what is agreed to, putting in any new wording with xt formatting. I also put the citations back in (can someone —- maybe? —check that I matched them up correctly?), added that caballine horses were equus, tried to clarify the issue Olive raised, and did a wee bit more work based on the comments of  ( though his edits were to the other version that we aren’t using now)  Thoughts? Montanabw (talk) 16:05, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The taxonomic horse family Equidae evolved in North America 55 million years ago. By the end of the Late Pleistocene, there were two lineages of the equine family known to be present in North America-Equus, also called the "caballine" or "stout-legged horse", and Haringtonhippus, or the "stilt-legged horse". Recent studies of ancient DNA suggest that the North American caballine horses included the ancestral horse that gave rise to the modern horse. At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the non-caballines went extinct and the caballines were extirpated from the Americas. This was possibly due to a changing climate or the impact of newly arrived human hunters. Thus, prior to the Columbian Exchange, the youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas dates between between 7,600 and 10,500 years old.


 * If any changes to the above can use red text just for visibility and strikeout rather than deleting text, that will help. Also, I do think we need to keep that end footnote about the mythology of the horse not going extinct, but as an endnote only, I think we had prior consensus to keep that?  Montanabw (talk) 16:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There appears to be inconsistency in the use of two different types of quote marks, some citations have misplaced spaces, and as at the beginning of this discussion I oppose the inclusion of any nonsense about the horse not going extinct. It's patently false, and leaving in even a footnote relating to it is completely undue, as it's based only on some PhD thesis by a non-notable individual at a barely-notable institution, and has in any case serious and obvious (not to say very silly) glaring errors. I have not changed my mind about this. GPinkerton (talk) 17:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)


 * . The quote marks, which I'm not seeing right now, is a copy edit situation which can be dealt with easily either here or in the article. The article you refer to-Henderson?- is, I agree, probably  not a great reliable source although PhD dissertations can be be very good sources. Laval University is a very good, very old, basically French university within the Canadian university system, by the way. I am not attached to using the article as a  foot note since it is  borderline,  but there is past agreement to include it this way. We might also consider including it in See Also. Littleolive oil (talk) 17:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I've removed the quote marks and misplaced spaces now. I had never heard of Laval and since no peer review was ever done nothing in it is worthy of inclusion alongside reliable sources. Theses can be reliable but only if the author and subject are of proven worth; neither is true here. GPinkerton (talk) 18:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

how about this? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:14, 21 June 2020 (UTC):

The horse clade, Equidae, diverged in North America 55 million years ago. By the end of the Late Pleistocene, there were two lineages of the equine family known to be present in North America: a "caballine" or "stout-legged horse" belonging to the genus Equus; and Haringtonhippus, the "stilt-legged horse". Recent studies of ancient DNA suggest that the North American caballine horses were closely related to and possibly included the ancestor of modern horses. At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the non-caballines went extinct and the caballines were extirpated from the Americas. This was possibly due to a changing climate or the impact of newly arrived human hunters. Thus, prior to the Columbian Exchange, the youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas is dated to between ≈10,500 and 7,600 years Before Present.

I'm also going to raise the issue that "7,600 and 10,500 years old" is not the same as "between ≈10,500 and 7,600 yr BP". "Present" does not mean "this year". It should probably just link to Before Present. GPinkerton (talk) 17:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * How about simply the youngest physical evidence of late-surviving Equids in the Americas is dated to between ≈10,500 and 7,600 yr BP.?? Atsme Talk 📧 18:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: Taxonomic is a disambiguation link. I presume you mean Taxonomic . BD2412  T 18:16, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think this word is needed here at all. It should be the "The horse clade, Equidae, diverged in North America ...". "Evolved" is not suitable, since horses continued and continue to evolve. GPinkerton (talk) 18:39, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It looks good to me. Captain Kirk to Starship Enterprise, "Beam me up, Scotty." Atsme Talk 📧 18:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with the phrase "were closely related to and possibly" as suggested by Hemiauchenia. Only Weinstock et al. (2005) make a "closeness" claim: They conclude Hippidion and caballines are "close", but make no claims about the relationship between other stout-legged horses and caballines or between stout-legged horses and stilt-legged horses. I do not find that any of the four cited articles (Heintzman et al. [2017], Barrón-Ortiz et al. [2017], Orlando et al. [2013], Weinstock et al. [2005]) in the suggested text making any claim that most recent common ancestor was caballine. The "closely related" claim made by Weinstock et al. (2005) seems superceded by Sakissian et al. (2015), a research group which included Weinstock, Willersley, and Prieto from the Weinstock et al. (2005) research group. Montanabw (talk) has clearer text about the genus Equus and the genus Harringtonhippus. However, for clarity's sake, I suggest a comma in Montanabw's text after the phrase "stout-legged horse". GPinkerton raises an important point about dating, and the proposed text should reflect the nomenclature used in Halle et al. (2009) (e.g., years before present). - Tim1965 (talk) 19:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Horse/horses. Here it is again. "The modern horse" is fine. "Modern horses" sounds like an attempt to include more than one modern species, which is pointless and potentially misleading. GPinkerton (talk) 21:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, I think we are close enough to consensus that I’m going to put the more or less final draft into the article, with a few of the recommended tweaks, and we can do cleanup from there. Montanabw (talk) 22:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)