Is the horse native to North America or was it brought here by the Spanish?
Philip
? ? ?
Dear Philip,
One may say the horse was native to North America, since horses had evolved there some 55 million years ago, but they became extinct about 10,000 years ago. Thus the Spanish did not introduce the horse so much as re-introduce it. A feature , by Dan Flores on horses and their “interrupted” wild descendants, mustangs appeared in the February 2010 issue of Wild West.
Sincerely,
Jon Guttman
Research Director
World History Group
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