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Horses are Very Weird

2020-01-24 · explainer · Hank · 4:01 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Explainer · tags: recurring series, community lore

In a Bizarre Beasts video about a familiar animal, Hank tells John that horses are weirder than he thought: there are barely any truly wild horses, horses evolved in North America and were brought back, and a horse's leg is mostly foot, the horse walking on one big toe.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Familiar but bizarre: horses can't puke, no truly wild horses, Przewalski's horse, the tarpan, cave paintings, North American origin and the mustang

  • ★★★ Hank says this Bizarre Beast is an animal John knows that is way weirder than he thought: being common doesn't mean not being bizarre. — 00:00:00 · Bizarre Beasts
  • ★★ Hank says horses can't vomit and can't breathe through their mouths. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says there are kind of no wild horses: there are lots of feral horses, wild individuals of a domesticated species, tens of thousands of them in North America. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says a Mongolian horse species, Przewalski's horse or takhi, went extinct in the wild and was reintroduced; it is often called the last wild horse. — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says the takhi probably isn't (entirely) the ancestor of modern horses, and genetic studies indicate it might be a feral descendant of an ancient domesticated horse. (hedged) — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says wild and domesticated horse herds shared the same spaces for thousands of years, so there is no sharp line between wild and domesticated horses. — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says the takhi, with short legs and a zebra-like mane, is likely a good approximation of what horses looked like before domestication. (hedged) — 00:01:15
  • ★★ Hank says modern horses may descend partly from Przewalski's horse, but a big piece is also the tarpan, a now entirely extinct wild horse of which there is maybe a photo and definitely one single drawing. (hedged) — 00:01:15
  • ★★ Hank says cave paintings are the only images we have of pre-domestication horses. — 00:01:41
  • ★★★ Hank says horses evolved in North America, barely crossed the Bering land bridge before going extinct there, and humans brought them back, after which they escaped and went wild. — 00:01:41

00:02:10 — The vertebrate body plan and the horse leg: mostly foot, walking on one toe; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says the North American mustang is kind of an invasive species and kind of a reintroduced one, the only such case in history as far as he knows. (hedged) — 00:02:10
  • ★★★ Hank says all terrestrial vertebrates share a very similar body plan: two forelimbs, two hind limbs, a trunk, a head, and feet at the end of each limb. — 00:02:10
  • ★★ Hank says hands are feet you don't walk on (to an evolutionary physiologist, feet you type with); bats fly with feet and birds' feet became nubbins on their arms. (playful) — 00:02:40
  • ★★ Hank says humans, ostriches, mice and Tyrannosaurus rex all have the same limb pattern: bone, bone, foot. — 00:02:40
  • ★★ Hank says the genus Equus, including horses, zebras and donkeys, is not closely related to any living species. — 00:03:09
  • ★★★ Hank says the fossil record shows horses' toes becoming less necessary until they walk on one big toe: only the top two bones of a horse leg are leg bones, the rest are foot. — 00:03:09
  • ★★ Hank says the horse hoof is just a big toenail, so galloping stallions are all walking on one finger. (playful) — 00:03:40
  • ★★ Hank concludes that if you look closely enough, everything is a bizarre beast. — 00:03:40 · Bizarre Beasts
  • ★★ Hank says next time Bizarre Beasts will return to animals John is less familiar with. — 00:03:40 · Bizarre Beasts

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: body plan · horse

Also: Projects: Bizarre Beasts

Concepts: cave painting · domestication of the horse · Equus · feral horse · Fossil · hoof · invasive species · mouse · mustang · ostrich · Przewalski's horse · tarpan · Tyrannosaurus

Places: Beringia · Mongolia · North America

Only in the description or credits: Bizarre Beasts Pin Club

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