Southern Nevada's wild horses (pic heavy)

Anyone seen the wild Burros of Virgin Valley? We camped at the spring several years ago and they hung around there one day. The horses are much, much prettier!

Cool pics vegasjames! One has to wonder how the Horses and Burros flourish in such a desolate, nearly barren landscape! I'm sure there has to be water source somewhere nearby, but likely the only one for miles!

 I love wild horses. My family has adopted a few of them. Great Mountain ponys. They are in fact invasive species.The native americans had no word for horse when they arrived. They called them "big dogs". I think it is a shame to get rid of them to subsidize the sheep and cattle industry.  Vic

Nevada is actually dotted with natural springs.  Even Las Vegas means the meadows. This was a lot greener before they capped the springs to control the water.

One problem though is that the BLM and Water Authority are fencing off water sources to make sure the horses cannot access the water then claiming there is not enough water to sustain the horses.

Now that you mention it, I recall some fossilized horse teeth being dug up East of Modesto, CA near Turlock lake while some utility work was being done.  The College Paleontology class went out for a dig and If I recall correctly, even found a few Mastodon bones as well.  I paused and did a search hoping to find an article and post a link, but the only one I found was in the Modesto Bee and one must subscribe to view.  
I did find a story about fossils just south of there in Merced County where road construction uncovered the remains of dogs, horses, bison, camels and antelope.


fox40.com/2012/11/09/mammoth-fossils-unearthed-by-highway-construction/

The modern horse is strictly an introduced species from Europe and Asia. Fossil record dates the last native horses in North America to about 12,000 years ago when all North American species are thought to have become extinct. Most likely due to differences in grazing lands and over hunting by early Amerinds. Native American history has humans afoot until Spanish reintroduced horses to America. Fossil horse teeth all over the US but not same species as modern horse though some are of the same genus ( Equus)....Mel

OK, one can always make the argument they ain't discovered a fossil proving his theory yet so his theory cannot be discounted. If we're gonna think like that, we can say dinosaurs coexisted with humans in America because the fossils are out there somewhere but no one has found them to date. Until, someone digs up a 20,000 year old human skeleton sitting on a horse, I'll go with established science. Only science I've read says Early Americans ate the little horses that were here and most likely helped them into extinction.

By the way, I really don't know of many if any historians or anthropologists these days who claim Columbus discovered America. Lots of actual documented scientific discoveries that would discount that theory. As opposed to saying aliens colonized Earth cause somewhere there's a fossil out there to prove it but we just ain't found it yet. That's as they say, putting the cart before the horse. First you get the proof and then you change the written history. Until then, history must be written on what we know, not what we guess or would like to be true...Mel

Interesting but based on hearsay only except for the later reports of horses. A Marcopolo magazine is not a scientific journal, after all. The most genetically pure herd of wild horses I think, was found in Arizona or New Mexico where they have genetics almost exactly like the Spanish barb. The first reported incidences of native American horse usage come from the southwest where the Spanish were, and plains tribes and those just west of the eastern mountains all reported they got their horses from southwestern tribes but of course, verbal histories are notoriously unreliable due to a tendency for self aggrandizement. As are the accounts of explorers ie. maps that say "Beyond these points there be dragons". How do you separate the BS from the science? You look at modern, well documented discoveries. Again, there is a lot of archeological and anthropological data out there, so, for now, a hypothesis of "non extinction" is only speculation until someone actually finds that 20,000 year old horse cart, saddle etc. By the way, rather than hypothesize Amerinds used native horse species that did not become extinct, it is perhaps more probable that earlier explorers from Asia or northern Europe brought over some of their Asian or European horses before the Spanish. Interesting topic for a genetic study but unfortunately it would take a time machine to go back and test the horses of the earliest Amerinds to shed light upon the subject. Current wild horse populations probably have their genetics too diluted..Mel

Which species of prehistoric horse was found in Nevada?

chem.tufts.edu/science/evolution/horseevolution.htm

Not all prehistoric horses were only 2 feet tall.  So no, not a well proven "theory".

And if all the horses went prehistoric horses simply suddenly disappeared then where did the modern horse come from. Think about it.  Just because a species goes extinct that does not mean the whole family (as in kingdom, phylum, etc.) went extinct.

Or look at it this way. Dachshunds are decedents of wolves. Does that make wolves extinct or did inbreeding of different species just lead to new and more diverse species?

In fact if you look at the link I provided they mention "Dinohippus is believed to be the closest relative to Equus, the genus that includes the living horses, asses and zebras. Dinohippus fossils are found in the Upper Miocene of North America and date from 13 - 5 million years ago.".  Also if you look at the chart at the bottom they show that the modern horse actually developed from the prehistoric horses.  Point being that horses have existed for millions of years and various species existed across what it now known as North America. Some of the species could have simply went extinct due to the inbreeding of the different species leading to an entirely new species.  That does not mean a complete disappearance of the family, merely a transition from one species to another.  This is how we eventually came to the modern horse.  The modern horse did not just simply magically appear all of a sudden.

Something else that does not add up is that the Spaniards thought spotted horses were inferior and used solid, generally black horses, for military action. And so these were the horses that were brought to the "New World".  So where did the wild palominos and some of the others come from unless they either were already here or the Spanish horses inbred with already existing horses.

The claim that there is no record of the Native Americans not having horses prior to the introduction of the Spanish horses, which actually descended from North American horses, is not provable since 1. The Native Americans did not really keep much in the way of written records. 2. The Spanish did not travel that far inland and tended to stick closer to the coast.  Why do you think the Spanish Missions were so close to oceans or other waterways?  So the reports of Spanish were of limited value as well. 3. And we cannot rely totally on fossil records since for one we are discussing the modern horse, which means NOT old enough to have a fossil record.  Basically there is no way to prove or disprove whether or not the modern horse existed prior to Columbus arriving.  But there is some evidence against this considering the genetic diversity would be impossible in such a short time with what was brought over if other horses were not already here. And the report from Sir Francis Scott of seeing herds of wild horses on the West Coast not that long after Columbus' arrival.  There is no way the Spanish horses brought here could have bred and expanded so much in such a short interval.