Tarpan
| Tarpan Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| The "Cherson tarpan", the only tarpan to be photographed, 1884 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Perissodactyla |
| Family: | Equidae |
| Genus: | Equus |
| Species: | |
| Subspecies: | †E. f. ferus
|
| Trinomial name | |
| †Equus ferus ferus Boddaert, 1785
| |
| Synonyms | |
The tarpan (Equus ferus ferus) was a free-ranging horse population of the Eurasian steppe from the 18th to the 20th century. What qualifies as a tarpan is subject to debate; whether tarpans were genuine wild horses, feral domesticated horses, or hybrids is unclear, though DNA sequencing suggests that at least some tarpans were genetically distinct from modern domestic horses. The last individual believed to be a tarpan died in captivity in the Russian Empire in 1909.
Beginning in the 1930s, several attempts were made to develop horses that looked like tarpans through selective breeding, called breeding back by advocates. The breeds that resulted included the Heck horse, Hegardt or Stroebel's horse and a derivation of the Konik breed, all of which have a primitive appearance, particularly in having a grullo coat colour. Some of these horses are now commercially promoted as "tarpans", although such animals are only domesticated breeds and not the wild animal themselves.