The Nature Of Horses
Created | Updated Jun 26, 2005
Book Review: (part of the Popular Science Book Project - A4166336)
Stephen Budiansky - The Nature Of Horses (their evolution, intelligence and behaviour)
Beginning with an investigation of the ancestry of the horse, and how close it came to extinction, this excellent study moves through social behaviour and domestication to the perceptual systems, communication and intelligence.
An examination of mechanical design, gait and physiological limits follows, and the book ends with a short chapter on breeding and genes.
Comparing the efficiency of the horse's digestive system with other similar sized animals, it is shown how the horse's arrangement is less efficient than a ruminant like a cow, but capable of processing poorer-quality vegetable matter, and so allowing horses to exist in more marginal habitats.
Despite this, the horse, whose ancestors had originated in North America before spreading to Europe and Asia, had become extinct in its continent of origin, and was possibly quite limited in range (and definitely on the human menu) before eventually adopting a mutually beneficial relationship with humans, and arriving at its current position of relative security.
The nature of its sense organs, the kind of habitat it evolved to live in, and its status as a herbivore and prey animal are considered in investigations of equine communication and social behaviour, as well as experiments into the intelligence and trainability of the horse.
As a fascinating insight into the nature of a large, and often much loved, domestic animal, this book will be of interest to many kinds of reader. The writer, a professional science journalist, manages to go into sufficient depth to inform and entertain people with a scientific interest in biology, but without losing readers with a more general interest in horses.
Stephen Budiansky - The Nature Of Horses (their evolution, intelligence and behaviour)
Beginning with an investigation of the ancestry of the horse, and how close it came to extinction, this excellent study moves through social behaviour and domestication to the perceptual systems, communication and intelligence.
An examination of mechanical design, gait and physiological limits follows, and the book ends with a short chapter on breeding and genes.
Comparing the efficiency of the horse's digestive system with other similar sized animals, it is shown how the horse's arrangement is less efficient than a ruminant like a cow, but capable of processing poorer-quality vegetable matter, and so allowing horses to exist in more marginal habitats.
Despite this, the horse, whose ancestors had originated in North America before spreading to Europe and Asia, had become extinct in its continent of origin, and was possibly quite limited in range (and definitely on the human menu) before eventually adopting a mutually beneficial relationship with humans, and arriving at its current position of relative security.
The nature of its sense organs, the kind of habitat it evolved to live in, and its status as a herbivore and prey animal are considered in investigations of equine communication and social behaviour, as well as experiments into the intelligence and trainability of the horse.
As a fascinating insight into the nature of a large, and often much loved, domestic animal, this book will be of interest to many kinds of reader. The writer, a professional science journalist, manages to go into sufficient depth to inform and entertain people with a scientific interest in biology, but without losing readers with a more general interest in horses.
