The Mongolian government has made a gift of three takhi (Prezewalksi’s horse) to the Japanese government. The takhi will live on grassland at TAMA Zoological Park near Tokyo. The gift expresses thanks for Japan’s “help during hard times” - not sure if that refers to something specific, or if it is just diplomacy. 

Look at their stripey manes! Sturdy takhi are believed to be the ancestors of domestic horses today.

Are you all sick of pictures of Mongolian animals wandering in snow yet? Too bad, here’s some takhi (Przewalsi’s Horse) wandering in snow. Photo by Jan Wigsten.

Four takhi (przewalski’s horse or wild horse) were shipped from a Czech zoo to join the wild takhi in Mongolia July 17th. Takhi went extinct in the 60s, but have been reintroduced from zoo populations in Europe and America and are doing well.

Top: peeking out of a shipping container. Source

Bottom: inside the temporary enclosure, getting used to Mongolia’s weather before being let free for good. Source

June 5th was the 20th anniversary of reintroducing takhi bred in zoos to the wild in Mongolia.

Takhi, wild horses that have never been tamed - most wild horses are feral horses descended from tame horses - went extinct in the wild in the 1960s. Today there are 300 in wild herds in Mongolia, and about a thousand more in zoos around the world, all decended from the last twelve captive takhi in 1950, after Nazi soldiers shot most of the remaining ones on a nature preserve in Ukraine.

In 2005, their classification was changed from “extinct” to “critically endangered” and in 2011 to just “endangered”.

It is foaling season for takhi, the original wild horses, and so far the news is good. Despite a harsh winter, at least three mares in the wild Mongolian herd have foaled, as well as this high energy colt born at the Werribee Open Range Zoo in Australia.

There are about 1700 takhi left, and they had been extinct in the wild, but a group of 300 has been reintroduced in Mongolia and their numbers seem to be growing.

Animal care workers at Hortobagy National Park in Hungary try to catch a takhi (Przewalski’s horse) to be sent to Mongolia to join the wild herd.

The takhi has this expression like “lol, whatever.”

A Mongolian horse with stripey legs.

The stripes come from having a parent or grandparent who is a takhi (Przewalski’s horse, which I probably spelled wrong). The only real wild horses are the takhi in Mongolia, everywhere else, wild horses are just tame horses that escaped and bred. Takhi have never been tamed, but they do sometimes mate with domestic horses.

Photo by Susan Fox, an American wildlife painter who does weekly posts about Mongolia.