The Tarpan, the myth, the legend, the hoax. (And is it time for me to stop hyperfixating on horses?) (Patreon)

Tarpan is perhaps the most commonly used term to describe european wild horses. But why? Where does this term come from?
Well Tarpan used to refer to various different equines across eurasia. Sometimes it was even turkmenian Kulans, but in most of cases, it was just mere feral horse herds.

Any why wouldn't there be feral horses? There's numerous feral horses no matter if it's the scantly populated America to the densely packed Europe.

The specimens described and the one photographed are most definitely feral horses. The grullo colouration is also only ever a later invention. If there still were actual wild horses, we would have some genetic evidence of it due to crosbreeding with feral equines, but we have none.

This Tarpan myth of course was propagated throughout eastern europe (and germany) due to national pride. To have a wild horse, a truly wild horse is surely something to be proud of. Horses are noble creatures indeed, and having a wild untamed equine surely was the aspiration of many people who proceeded to breed 'feral' looking heck horses (and others like the konik)

In all fairness I believe the program succeeded. You can't bring back wild horses, but to recreate the Tarpan, you only need feral horses. And that's what the heck horse is when it gets reintroduced to european natural sanctuaried.

But the Tarpan never was a wild horse. People are still too married to the name 'Tarpan' to mean wild horse when it was referring to the idea of a wild horse that's actually just feral horses or various other equines.

Dinosaurs suffer from a similair fate. You'd get a tooth taxon like a troodon that's a waste basket for fossils that we 'simply don't know what to make of'
Recently the name Brontosaurus was ressurected, y'all remember people getting upset at Brontosaurus getting relegated to Apatosaurus excelsus?
People get married to names more than the fact of the matter!
The name, the fictitious depiction in pop culture is what people fall in love with, but in all reality, what we have are some scant bones for good measure.

The same is when people refer to actual wild horses in the european fossil record as Tarpans.
People are married to the name and want it preserved.

I will have a better time redescribing this Tarpan situation for my youtube video. But for now it might be time to move onto other projects but heep this one on the backburner.