Przewalski's horse an also-ran

Przewalski's horse Photo by Claudia Feh

CC BY-SA 4.0 

Przewalski's horse has long been seen as the last population of wild horses. No more. A new attempt to find the origins of domestication using ancient DNA is full of surprises (here). 

The Botai Culture of Central Asia has been tied to domestication of horses some 5500 years ago. Ancient DNA was extracted from the bones of Botai horses and the genomes compared with those of other ancient and modern horses.

Cord at term of Przewalski's horse

From Benirschke Comparative Placentation

The first surprise was that Przewalski's horse clustered with the Botai horses. The inescapable conclusion is that Przewalski's is a feral population descended from those domesticated at Botai.

The second finding was that all other horses descend from a separate branch. This was foreshadowed in a previous study (previous post). The most parsimonious explanation is that there was a second centre of domestication yet to be identified.

Benirschke has several images of the placenta of Przewalski's horse (see also previous post).

Mammal Diversity Database



Zebu cattle (Bos taurus indicus)
Agricultural Research Service (USDA) Public Domain

How many species of mammals are there? That is the appropriate title of an article (OA here) accompanying the launch of the American Society of Mammalogy's new Mammal Diversity Database (here).


The answer is 6495 species and counting. Compared to Wilson & Reeder Mammal Species of the World (MSW3), which has its own database (here), that is an increase of 1250 in 13 years.


The authors of ASM MDD have erred in favour of the splitters. In particular, acceptance of the taxonomy of Groves & Grubb for Artiodactyla and Perissodactyla (previous post) will raise eyebrows. In anticipation they write, "inclusion of the taxonomy of Groves and Grubb (2011) in the MDD ensures that these taxa are vetted by the greater mammalogical community."


I note, however, that unlike Castello (previous post), they list the zebu as a subspecies of Bos taurus. Important because this species is a focus in research on bovine placentation and reproduction in places like Brazil.


I found the new MDD more difficult to navigate than MSW3. For example, if you enter a higher taxon than genus you get all the entries in that taxon rather than any definition of the Family or Order itself.


As far as I can see there is no possibility to search for synonyms as on MSW3. I have found this search function of MSW3 enormously valuable when delving into the older literature on placentation. Similarly there is little information about subspecies names.


Some choices of terminology meet my approval. They drop Cetartiodactyla in favour of Artiodactyla (whales and their kin are nested within even toed ungulates). Inevitably they retain Afrosoricida for the order that includes tenrecs, otter shrews and golden moles (a really unfortunate name as African shrews are numerous and belong to an entirely different clade).


Most regrettaby, however, they retain Infraclass Placentalia for eutherians. This unfortunate term was introduced by McKenna & Bell and I have ranted about it before (previous post). It has caused countless confusion and the vernacular "placentals" or even "placental mammals" can mislead the unwary to believe marsupials are without placentation. Prothero among them (previous post).

Placentation in the wildebeest

Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)

Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim (Wikimedia Commons)

In ruminants binucleate trophoblast cells (BNCs) migrate to and fuse with uterine epithelial cells to form a fetomaternal hybrid - either a syncytium or trinucleate cells. This remarkable mechanism was described some 40 years ago by Peter Wooding. The fusion is aided by a syncytin, the product of an endogenous retroviral gene (previous post).

Almost all the ruminants studied hitherto have trinucleate cells. A fetomaternal syncytium is formed in the basal tragulids (chevrotains), which have a diffuse placenta without cotyledons. The other exception hitherto is syncytium formation in sheep and goats.

Binucleate trophoblast cell of bovine placenta from Benirschke

Now Wooding et al. (here) have undertaken to survey a wide range of ruminants including a chevrotain (Tragulidae), 8 bovids (Bovidae), 8 deer(Cervidae), the pronghorn (Antilocapridae) and a giraffe (Giraffidae). Only the musk deer (Moschidae) are missing.

Almost all the pecoran ruminants studied had trinucleate cells. Exceptions were the sheep and the wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus). This is a new and highly interesting observation.

Three groups of bovids, classified as Tribes by Groves and Grubb (previous post) and Subfamilies by Wilson and Reeder share a common ancester (here and here). These are Alcelaphini, Hippotragini and Caprini. The first includes the wildebeest and the last sheep and goat. So it is likely that the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of sheep and goats and the wildebeest had a fetomaternal syncytrium.  

To summarize. The basal Tragulidae have fusion of BNCs and maternal epithelium to form a syncytium. The trinucleate cell replaced this in the MRCA of pecoran ruminants (those with cotyledons). Then a fetomaternal syncytium reappeared in the MRCA of wildebeest and sheep and goats. 

To test this hypothesis it would be useful to have studies of the third tribe Hippotragini, i.e. an oryx, the roan and sable antelopes or the bluebuck.

Our Human Story - Book Review



ISBN 978 0 565 09391 4 Cover Price £14.99

This short book (160 pages) can be highly recommended to anyone who, like me, often loses the plot when reading papers on human evolution. It covers all phases in hominin evolution during the past 7 million years. The most important fossils are named (and the names explained), illustrated, and placed in geographical context by some excellent maps.



There is a good index so next time you are unsure what is referred to by KNM-ER 1470 you can quickly look it up!


I had anticipated that the book might lack the very latest info such as the redating of the early humans from Jebel Irhoud or the early dispersals to Arabia and India. But Louise Humphrey and Chris Springer have it all. Only the 120,000 year-old human fossil from Misliya, Israel (here) was published too late to make it into their book.


Chris Stringer is a strong proponent of the Out of Africa hypothesis that has all modern populations deriving from a single dispersal 45-55,000 years ago. But in this book alternative scenarios are given a fair treatment.


Near the end there is a neat diagram summarizing human evolution during the last million years.