1y ago

TIL that horses went extinct in North America about 10,000 years ago. They were then reintroduced to the continent by the Spanish as early as the 1550s.

www.pbs.org American Horses ~ Horses in North America: A Comeback Story | Blog | Nature | PBS

Ancient horses roamed the North American continent for millions of years. And many, many years later, horses played an integral role in building the

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1y ago

TIL that horses went extinct in North America about 10,000 years ago. They were then reintroduced to the continent by the Spanish as early as the 1550s.

www.pbs.org /wnet/nature/blog/american-horses-horses-in-north-america-a-comeback-story/

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26 comments

I knew horses were brought over in the 1500s, but I didn’t realize they had previously been here! I wonder what the primary cause for extinction was- climate? Disease? Predators?
- Homo sapien expansion after the last glacial maximum is a strong contender, but my understanding is that we don't yet have enough data to rule out environmental changes, or sufficient resolution to really prove it was us.
  The most convincing argument I've heard points out that Africa - where we evolved - has more surviving mega-fauna than any other continent. If animals who had more evolutionary time to develop strategies for coping with humans are way more likely to survive, that strongly suggests we played a large role.
  It's an area of ongoing research without a definitive answer though.
- Not only had they previously been here, they evolved here first and migrated out through Siberia when it still connected the continents.
- The interesting part is that they evolved in America, crossed over to Asia (and from there to Europe and Africa) through the Bering land bridge, and then went extinct in America together with the American megafauna (possibly because of overexploitation by recently arrived humans, possibly due to climate change, possibly a combination of both), only to be reintroduced later on.
- The usual reason, probably.
  
  So death?
  
  Environmental changes. Got it.

We had some camels too! I don't know how close they were to what we think of as camels today, but apparently they were closer to Eurasian camels than to South American species life llama or alcapas.
- North America also had Cheetahs (called Miracinonyx), which is why Pronghorns are so fast. No current predator can chase one down. They are over-built now.
  
  but recent studies suggest that it was not specialized in chasing like the cheetah was since it retained retractable claws that would have crippled its ability to run fast. Instead, it was more closely related to the cougar, and at least M. trumani might have employed a hunting behavior that has no modern analogues, suggesting that it running fast like the cheetah is a common misconception
  From your link
  
  As someone who used to go pronghorn hunting with my drunk uncles, they still have one predator.

Horses are an invasive species.
- To Eurasia yes. To North America no.
  
  Strike that, reverse it.

I've heard some indigenous people say that horses never went extinct in North America pointing to the fact that although Spanish horses were released in NA in the 16th century, 17th century European explorers documented great plains tribes with advanced horse cultures which would be hard to attribute to a handful of releases from the 16th century expeditions.
- In fairness it only took like 30 years to develop advanced car culture.
  The utility of the horse and the breeding and lack of predators would’ve made them pervasive in no time.
  
  Also, most existing indigenous civilisations had collapsed due to genocide and the diseases imported by the European invaders. It was literally a post-apocalyptic scenario. The survivors were basically Mad Maxing it, only cars hadn't been invented yet so they had to use horses.

26 comments