Howard Baker passes

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

That's one of the things I find so interesting about large mammals in North America- horses were here, then died out, then were reintroduced by the Spanish.

It ties into an argument I have will well-meaning animal rights people who opposed carriage horses- despite what they think, we don't have "wild" horses here; the Mustangs are better described as "feral" because 500 years of being loose on a range doesn't counteract 6000 years of domestication. The only truly wild species of horse is Przewalski's. This link is to a fact sheet on them; the first part is about their taxonomy and that, while they are closely related to the domestic horse, the domestic horse is not descended from them:

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/41763/0

I'm glad evolution was brought up in this thread. I love this sh*t. Biodiversity is incredibly fascinating.

it really is so cool. cosmos touched on it a few times, like when they discussed dogs. i'd never thought about it til they covered it in the show. that's selective evolution, just like cows and horses.

i worked with a woman who didn't believe races should marry, she used the different types of birds to explain why-robins with robins, blue jays with blue jays.
it burst her bubble when i pointed out that birds will mate with birds of other species, and asked her about horses not caring what color the other horse was!
our own pigment differences are due to evolution and geography.