"Equus przhevalskii"--the little horse

Remember the Lascaux caves in France’s southwestern Dordogne region and the wonderful animal paintings, especially of the horses. More like miniature horses or ponies. Nevertheless, the little horses may have had distant relatives in the mid 1800s in Central Asia and were officially given the name Equus przhevalskii..."Equus" being horse and "przhevalskii" being Nicolai Przhevalsky who at that time was recording the flora and fauna throughout four expeditions in Central Asia and discovered "...the only truly wild horse in the world, a small, shaggy, fierce beast which was so elusive that he was never able to shoot one, so the specimen skin he brought back was one obtained from a Mongol." And "...in his honor, Equus przhevalskii, Przhevalsky's horse, ...was probably the very species drawn by Paleolithic artists on the walls of the caves in the Dordogne region of France." Nicolai Przhevalsky was born on this date in 1839.

Nicolai Przhevalsky