sutton026

A fter finally having done a post on Bubalus murrensis , it’s time to look at the extinct European wild ass, Equus hydruntinus . This enigmatic taxon once roamed Europe during the Pleistocene until the a part of the Holocene, and its presence is therefore interesting for “European rewilding”. This post is going to investigate its systematic position, time and range, looks and reasons for extinction. And of course which implications it has for the (re)introduction of megafauna here in Europe. But before that, there is some (paleo-)equine terminology to learn: caballines: anything closer to horses than to other living equines (or: domestic horses opposed to the Przewalski’s horse) hemiones: E. hemionus plus E. kiang , which form a clade stenonines:   Equus stenonis plus similar equine remains from the Plio-Pleistocene. asinines: anything closer to the African wild ass E. asinus than to other living equines. Skull of E. hydruntinus from Crimea, taken from...

D uring the Pleistocene and probably also until the antiquary, Europe was not inhabited by only two species of bovine – aurochs and wisent – but three. This third bovine was Bubalus murrensis , an indigenous species of water buffalo. It is extinct and left no living descendants. Nowadays, due to the European rewilding movement, the genus Bubalus has gained some interest for landscape conservationists and “rewilders”. It is important to distinguish between living European variants of the domestic water buffalo, descending from the Asiatic Bubalus arnee , and the indigenous species B. murrensis . Are water buffalos a perspective for conservation in Europe, and are they further a legitimate megafauna species on this continent? Bubalus murrensis – the true European water buffalo B. murrensis was part of a clade within Bubalus that is now extinct and that was different from B. arnee . Since the postcranial skeleton of large bovines are all very similar, most mate...