Their origins steeped in mystery, the wild horses in the Namib Desert have captured imaginations and touched hearts. These resilient animals have survived in the desert for more than a century and over the years have become a major tourist attraction in southern Namibia.
The book ‘Wild Horses in the Namib Desert’ (now out-of-print) is the outcome of a collaboration, revealing the little-known history and behaviour of the wild horse population. Manni Goldbeck sheds light on the horses’ origins, taking the reader back to the tumultuous time of World War l and exploring the more plausible theories, while Telané Greyling (PhD Zoology) shares her knowledge of the intriguing behaviour of the Namib horses gleaned from her many years of research and life amongst the horses. Freelance writer, Ron Swilling, created a text from the material giving it a breath of life. Finally, from the love for the horse and all things wild, the book was born.
An equine biography of the Namib wild horses, the book traces the beginnings of Equus groups on the sub-continent, following their journey over time to Namibia and the present day.
Join us every Sunday as we share the wild horses’ journey with you.
Moving even further back in time, the evolution of Equidae can be traced back to pre-history, about 52 million years ago, to an animal referred to as the ‘Dawn Horse’ or Eohippus (Hyracotherium), a small animal no larger than a dog. It is assumed that it lived in a jungle-like environment and was a browsing animal. Its four toes on the forefeet, three on the hind, terminating in thick horn and a foot pad, would have given it greater mobility on soft soil in its forest surroundings. Further adaptations and developments in size, conformation, teeth and toes - probably in conjunction with changing climate, terrain and vegetation - enabled even greater mobility and variation in diet. This culminated approximately four to eight million years ago in the prototype for the genus Equus which includes horses, zebras and asses (donkeys). Equus caballus, the ‘true horse’, became a long-legged agile creature of wide-open plains living in semi-arid regions, surviving on sparse vegetation where other large grazing animals, especially ruminants, could not. It remained wild until 5000 to 6000 years ago when nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes are said to have begun the process of domestication, changing its destiny forever.
During this vast time period of equine evolution, what we consider present day North America was linked by land bridges to Europe and Asia, as was Europe to Africa. Equidae migrated from North America over the land bridges to Asia, South America, Europe and finally North Africa. At the end of the ice age, when the land bridges disintegrated, four related forms of Equus remained in the Old World (Eurasia and Africa). They were the horses in Europe and western Asia, asses and zebras in the north and south of Africa respectively, and onagers (Asian wild asses) in the Middle East. The horse mysteriously became extinct in North America about 11 000 years ago, only to be reintroduced with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the sixteenth century.
The evolutionary branch comprising asses and zebras developed in the Old World and is distinguished by different physical characteristics. It is postulated that the evolution of the zebra involved the development of stripes as protection against predators and pests, one of these being the dreaded tsetse fly from Central Africa, transmitter of the deadly ‘sleeping sickness’. Tsetse flies are deterred by patterns or markings, preferring large plain-coloured subjects. This may be considered the reason why, unlike horses, zebras managed to gradually migrate southwards down the continent of Africa.
The domestication of horses spread westward from Central Asia to Europe, and south into Arabia and China. For a period of 4 000 years horses were essential for the advancement of civilisation. Man used them for war and conquest, agriculture and industry, and sport and recreation. They appear in artistic representations throughout mankind’s history from Ancient Egyptian friezes to Greek vases, Roman reliefs to Chinese paintings. Modern horse breeds are the result of human intervention and selective breeding, resulting in numerous breeds developed for specific purposes and physical characteristics. There are over 300 breeds in the world today.
Pockets of wild horses exist on every continent on the planet, except for Antarctica, and on several islands. The Mongolian Wild Horse, also known as Przewalski’s Horse, is the only horse never to have been domesticated and still existing in its true genetic form. Teetering on the brink of extinction, these horses - known for their aggression and fierce temperament - were considered extinct in the wild in the latter years of the twentieth century. However, a small breeding population that survived in captivity has since been reintroduced into its natural habitat. The Tarpan or Eurasian Wild Horse, once found in Europe and Asia, became extinct in 1918 when the last one died in a Ukrainian zoo. Other populations of wild horses are descended from domesticated ancestors and are often referred to as feral. These include the Mustangs of North America, the Brumbies of Australia, the Criollo of Argentina and the Sorraia of Spain. In South Africa there are a few small populations in the Drakensberg escarpment area in Mpumalanga, originating from the Gold Rush era, of which the Kaapsche Hoop and Morgenzon are the most well known. There is also a small group of wild horses living around the Bot River estuary near Hermanus in the Cape. Namibia is home to the Namib wild horses in the Namib Naukluft Park (with another small group at Aussenkehr in southern Namibia) and a separate and more recent population of wild horses in the Fish River Canyon.