subject: Large Plush Horse Toys & Interesting Facts [print this page] The plush horse that once sat in your room waiting for you to arrive home, was your most treasured plush toy. And, as was the case, it had seen many great adventures with you, both great and small. Perhaps over time, that childhood plush horse was given away, sold off at a bargain sale, lost but never forgotten. And here you are today, a little bit older, a little bit wiser and you find yourself once again longing for the plush horse that meant so much to you all those years ago. Looks like a trip to 'toyland' is in order and quick.
What is it about horses that awakens our senses and has us dreaming of far away places? Perhaps it's the poetic, magical element that surrounds them which always seems just a little bit more mythical rather than it does real. Whatever it is, it's difficult to describe, but one thing is certain: horses are simply one of the most enchanting animals on the planet.
With all that is so fascinating about horses, we always want to know more especially when it comes to where they originally came from. Gene hunters have finally solved the mystery that surrounds how modern horses came to be domesticated from their wild ancestors. Recent DNA evidence suggests that the descendants of modern horses are actually from more than one wild population of equine.
From the American Mustang to the Shetland pony, 77 mares were responsible for passing on their genes to today's domestic horses. According to co-researcher Dr. Peter Forster of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK, traces of original wild horse populations exist in today's domestic horse. Based on the genetic evidence, it puts to rest the debate as to whether or not just one wild horse population was responsible for carrying on the species or whether it was several. The evidence suggests that it was in fact more than one species of wild horse which were recruited for domestication from various parts of the world.
Genetic analysis was done on more than 600 horses from 25 different horse breeds and varieties from around the world including the U.S., Europe and Morocco. With the 28,000 year old remains of a horse that has been preserved in Alaskan ice, along with the DNA from wild horses that lived some 2,000 years ago in Sweden and Estonia, today's domestic horse DNA was compared to all those ancient samples.
With this new evidence, scientists now are be able to determine when exactly all of this [domestication] took place. To date, this part of the puzzle has proven difficult to pinpoint due to the poor fossil records in the horse family. There is already undisputed evidence that the first domestication of horses took place 2,000 years ago. And, by 1,000 BC, that domestication had spread through Europe, Asia, and North Africa. There are still some, however, that continue to believe horses were domesticated much earlier, sometime between 4,500 and 2,500 BC.
All of this new information will unlikely prevent you from running out to purchase that plush horse you can't get off your mind. All you care about is that no matter how horses became domesticated, the fact is, they exist which is really all that matters.
by: Angeline Hope
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