As the Year of the Horse begins, this article explores the fascinating science behind horses and their relatives, including their origins, social structures, and behavioral traits. Experts discuss the basic needs of horses, their social dynamics, and the importance of friendly relationships within horse societies.
, which is celebrated in many Southeast and East Asian countries. According to the Chinese zodiac, it’s also the start of the Year of the Horse, offering a perfect excuse to whinny about the science of horses and their animal relatives.
, in addition to three species of asses and three species of zebras. All trace their roots to North America, which was home to the very oldest known horse relatives up to 55 million years ago. But horses went extinct on the continent at the end of the last ice age; modern equids all hail from Africa and, only to find themselves something of an anachronism in modern society. Tellingly scientific investigation into horse behavior is mere decades old, says Sue McDonnell, an equine behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine.. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.spoke with McDonnell and Sarah King, a behavioral ecologist at Colorado State University, who specializes in horses and other equids, to highlight some of the most interesting science around these year’s star animals. Domestic horses have three basic needs: freedom, forage and friendships with other horses. That’s because the social nature of these animals runs very deep. Turn horses loose, and something remarkable happens, McDonnell says. “They immediately reassemble in the social structure that they had when we first domesticated them,” she says. In that structure, each herd includes several so-called harems consisting of one stallion and a handful of mares and their offspring, plus a “bachelor band” of younger related males that faces down threats to the herd. Studies have shown that the stallions with the most foals are also the ones with friendly relationships with their mares, not those who rely on aggression and violence. “Horse society really is held together by affiliative bonds,” King says.For domestic horse owners, hooves are a headache—they’re prone to splintering and require regular trimming and shoeing. But those problems only arise because of the hard surfaces domestic horses must walk on. Horses in the wild “have zero problems,” McDonnell says. And the hooves of these horses go through seasonal changes in response to local climate and surfaces, she notes. In spring and fall horses tend to develop longer hooves, which act “like little skis” to help animals navigate softer ground. In winter and summer, when the ground is harder, and animals don’t move as much, hooves naturally become shorter.), which live around the horn of Africa. “They’re in a very inhospitable environment—there’s real deserts there—and of course, there’s a lot of political issues in that part of the world as well,” she says. The animals are also hunted for food and medicine and must compete with livestock for foraged food.In contrast, their distant cousins, the Przewalski’s horses of Central Asia, are rebounding after becoming extinct in the wild as of the 1960s. After a careful program of breeding in zoos, scientists began reintroducing the horses to the wild in the 1980s. And now, King notes, some populations are fully self-sustaining. “They are a real conservation success story,” she says. This one won’t surprise people who have dealt extensively with horses, but research published last month experimentally proves that. “Our emotions are central when interacting with horses,” said study author Plotine Jardat, a horse behavior and welfare researcher at France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, tohuman emotions affect horse responses is vital for animal welfare, McDonnell says. For example, defensive behavior in a horse can easily be misinterpreted as aggression, she notes, and that can make people fearful—which, the new research shows, can further put the horse on edge, resulting in a tricky feedback loop.Horses have spent millennia evolving to avoid predators, and this has left them loath to show signs of pain or weakness around humans, McDonnell says. In recent years veterinarians have begun trying to get around this by poring through video footage to look for cues that a horse is ailing. Once a horse is alone, she says, “you can detect a lot of subtle behaviors indicating discomfort.”that can skim through horse footage to hunt for the small cues veterinarians pick up on but much faster than any human could.If cats meow and ducks quack, horses stereotypically neigh—but they also whinny and nicker and huff and squeal, and those noises have been, for the most part, overlooked. “We’re beginning to understand that there’s probably a lot more communication going on in those noises,” King says. “Understanding the context and what those noises mean, I think, is really interesting.”has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too., you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.
Horses Equids Horse Behavior Social Structure Animal Science
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