The horse disappeared from the Americas during the last ice age but was finally brought back by European settlers in the 1500s. There were once 12 species of horses living at the same time, but today we only have 1 surviving species. The only truly wild horses live in Kazakhstan.
Today, we are learning interesting and cool facts about horses. Below is a video that you can watch, keep scrolling to see the texts.
10 Cool Facts about Horses
Did you know riding a horse is 3.5 times more dangerous than riding a motorcycle?
10. Nose breathers
Horses are obligate nasal breathers, meaning They can not breathe through their mouths. The mouth is separated so the horse can’t accidentally inhale food. Horse lungs are 10 times bigger than our lungs, so they can generate a strong vacuum in those big nostrils.
Are you a nose breather or a mouth breather?
9. One stride per breath
While galloping, a horse’s breathing is directly controlled by the movement of its legs. Stretching the front legs forward expands the chest, so air gets sucked into the lungs and impacting the ground smushes the chest forcing air out.
Horses can’t hold their breath while swimming because the act of paddling itself forces them to breathe in and out even when their face is underwater.
8. A single toe
Horses are classified as “Perissodactyls”, or mammals with an odd number of toes and with hooves. They are closely related to the rhino, which has 3 hooved toes. The horse and rhino common ancestor started with 5 toes but lost them gradually over time.
Today a horse only has a single, prominent middle toe. The tip of this toe is covered in a huge keratin toenail, otherwise known as a hoof.
Did You Know?- Horse Power
In the 1700s, The term “Horse Power” was coined by inventor James Watt to help market his steam engine. His engine was mainly used to pump water out of coal mining shafts, and coal workers understood what Watt meant when he said “my engine can do the work of 6 horses!”
By 1913, the Ford Model T had 20 Horse Power! Today, most of the world markets engine power in the scientific unit, “KiloWatts”, but the USA sticks with Horse Power. 20 Horse Power is the exact same as 15 kiloWatts, but in an advertisement, 20HP sounds more powerful than 15kW.
7. Standing naps
Horses are prey animals. By napping while standing, a horse is ready to start running immediately if startled by a predator.
Horses have special tendons and ligaments that can lock their leg joints in place, allowing them to relax and doze off while balancing on their 4 legs like a chair.
This locking mechanism is called “the stay-apparatus.”
Don’t try sleeping while standing! Humans can’t lock their joints, and if even you put yourself in an entire body cast, you’d still fall over because we only have 2 legs to balance on.
Standing naps are not deep sleep, and horses must lie down daily too.
6. REM sleep
REM stands for rapid eye movement. During REM sleep, a mammal’s closed eyes dart around, and vivid dreaming occurs.
Horses only need about 30 minutes of REM sleep per 24 hours, but to reach this stage of sleep, they must lie down.
Horses sleep in short intervals spread throughout the day and night. In total, a horse truly sleeps for about 3 hours per day.
5. Lookout duty
In the wild, horses are social animals.
It is common to see an entire herd sleeping simultaneously while a single horse stands watch. Horses share this responsibility and rotate, which individual goes on guard duty throughout the day.
The horses’ predators include coyotes, bears, mountain lions, alligators, and wolves.
4. Fight or flight?
Horses are not equipped with horns like most grazing animals are. Instead, they are highly skilled gallopers and will choose flight over FIGHT whenever possible.
But Sometimes, horses are forced to fight off predators. Mares will fight to protect their babies if they are too weak to run away. Stallions also might protect a mare and her babies to earn mating rights.
Horses can stomp with their front legs and bite, but their most powerful move is bucking.
This is when a horse jumps in the air and kicks with both hind legs at the same time. Their hooves are very hard and can reach speeds of up to 200mph on impact.
A kick from the rear legs of a horse is easily fatal, which is why you should never stand behind a horse.
Horses also can’t see behind their behind, so you could startle them and wind up kicked in the face.
Adult horses weigh about 1000 pounds and are way too fast and dangerous for most of today’s predators to even attempt hunting.
3. Ancient predators and evolution
Horses first emerged about 55 million years ago in North America, and they ate leaves. Climate change soon caused many trees in North America to disappear, and new, wide-open grasslands replaced what was once forest.
The Horse Family, Equidae, evolved to take advantage of this new food source, grass. Horses thrived, and by about 10 million years ago, there were at least 12 different species of horses living in North America.
We had the giant horse at over 2,500 lbs and the tiny horse at just 100 lbs.
The modern horse evolved as the prey of now-extinct dire wolves, saber-toothed tigers, and the American cheetah. That is why. today, the modern horse’s defences seem a bit overpowered.
10 million years ago, the diversity of horses was wonderful, but then something bad happened.
By the end of the last ice age, just 12,000 years ago, all horses in North America had disappeared.
2. The Bering land bridge
Luckily, the modern horse we all love today could escape North America and migrate all the way west to Asia, Africa, and Europe.
During the last ice age, ocean levels were low because much of the earth’s water became stored as land ice.
This allowed the horse to walk from Alaska to Russia across the Bering land bridge. This land bridge was the same one that the ancient native Americans took east to populate the Americas.
Did these humans hunt the remaining horses in America to extinction, or did the ice destroy the grasslands resulting in starvation?
Maybe it was a disease? Nobody really knows, but by 12,000 years ago, when the ice age was over, there were no horses left in the Americas.
Fact 1. Domestication
When the ice age ended, humans started farming and building civilizations. Evidence shows horses were domesticated 5,500 years ago in Khazakstan for their meat, but humans quickly learned horses could also be used for milk, farm work, and, most amazingly riding!
Only one species of horse survives today, and it was brought, full circle, back to the Americas in the 1500s by European explorers, settlers, and conquistadors.
Today there are an estimated 86,000 “feral horses” living free in the American West. These once-domestic animals escaped from the Spanish hundreds of years ago and are called mustangs.
But the only truly wild horses that have no history of domestication live in Mongolia and are critically endangered. There are only 1,900 Przewalski’s [Sheh-VhAll-Skis] horses alive today.
Did You KNOW? – Long in the Tooth
Have you ever heard somebody use the expression “Long in the tooth” to describe something as old? As horses age, their gums recede, making their teeth appear longer. So a quick way to estimate the age of a horse is to look at its chompers.
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