Equus lenensis, the Lena horse, is an extinct species of horse from the Late Pleistocene and Holocene of Siberia. Some sources have considered it a subspecies of the wild horse.[2]
Discovery and history
A notable 'Lena horse' specimen was found in Batagaika crater in Yakutia, Siberia[3] which was preserved almost completely intact, and with liquid blood within its preserved veins.[3] The specimen was hypothesized to be about two months old when it died and was uncovered nearly 40,000 years later by scientists in 2018 because of the melting permafrost caused by rising temperatures in the region.[4]
Another specimen from the mid-Holocene called the Yukagir horse was found in another thawing deposit in, also in Yakutia (now the Sakha Republic).[5]
Description
Remains attributed to the species display a considerable range of morphological variability.[6] Those from northern Siberia are characterized by their small average size, Equus lenensis lived in cold steppe-tundra environments in Siberia. Dental mesowear analysis suggests they primarily ate primarily grass, but also consumed other vegetation like browse and/or non woody herbaceous plants to some degree.[7]
Taxonomy
Genetic studies show that E. lenensis does not descend from the last common ancestor of living horses, and is estimated to have diverged from them approximately 115,000 years ago, being one of the most divergent known Eurasian horse lineages alongside prehistoric horses known from the Iberian Peninsula. The youngest remains of the species date to 5,000 years Before Present (~3000 BC).[8]E. lenensis may have received gene flow from now extinct ghost populations of horses, which may at least partially explain its genetic distinctiveness from other wild horses.[8][9]
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Boeskorov, Gennady G.; Potapova, Olga R.; Protopopov, Albert V.; Plotnikov, Valery V.; Maschenko, Eugeny N.; Shchelchkova, Marina V.; et al. (July 2018). "A study of a frozen mummy of a wild horse from the Holocene of Yakutia, east Siberia, Russia". Mammal Research. 63 (3): 307–314. doi:10.1007/s13364-018-0362-4. ISSN2199-241X.
