No surprises here, I think

[altivo]

Your Patronus is the Horse! The horse is a symbol
of physical and spiritual power and is also a
bearer of burdens. He is a powerful ally
against your enemies.

That your Patronus is a horse says that you are a
strong person--strong enough to bear others'
burdens when they become too much. Be careful
to consider yourself and you will be a terrific
witch or wizard.


What is Your Patronus? Version 1
brought to you by Quizilla

Comments

Nope, no surprises.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Canter free, Tivo. :)

[animist.livejournal.com]

One of the fascinating things to me about horses in North America is that they had evolved here. From North America, equines dispersed across the Bering land bridge to Asia and then Africa. The original horses went extinct here once humans arrived, along with other large land mammals. So the return of the wild horse is kind of poetic when you think about it.

-- Bob

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep. My own suspicion is that man played some role in that extinction. But I've never seen it analyzed in detail. We know that humans hunted horses for food before realizing how useful they could be as helpers.

Hmmm.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Somehow I doubt that the original Native Americans wiped them out here. Of course, there are lingering suspicions humans did that to Mammoths. I think its probably just as likely the shifting climate led to evolutionary changes, in which their natural predators outpaced their own. For instance, as I recall, the Dire Wolf evolved out of the last ice age into the modern wolf -- and weren't the North American indigenous horses only a few inches tall or something along those lines, if I remember correctly?

Re: Hmmm.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I admit I have no idea what really erased the horse from North America 10 or 12 thousand years ago. I'm not sure anyone knows, though that disappearance does coincide with the last ice age, certainly a possible factor. It used to coincide with the arrival of the native American peoples' ancestors, but now they've pushed the date way back on that, so there is a significant overlap.

The earliest animals recognizable as 'horse-like', Eohippus, Mesohippus et al. were indeed tiny. They ranged in size from rabbit-like to the height of a large dog. These protohorses were digitigrade, but still had several toes. By the time of extinction, North American horses were quite recognizable as modern horses, walking on the ungulate middle toe with all remaining toes reduced to vestigial bones or even absent. They were large ponies, heavy boned, similar to the Przevalsky horse of Asia, the forest horse of Europe, or some of the modern draft pony breeds (Fjord, Haflinger, Exmoor.) Given the climate near the end of their existence, I suspect they were also quite hairy, a trait shared by these modern breeds.

Whatever the reason, I agree with Animist. Thank goodness they're back. I hug mine every day. ;)

Re: Hmmm.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

It certainly would be interesting to know the full story, or to see what they "actually" looked like ... but there are probably more people more fascinated by dinosaurs, their extinction and what they "actually" looked like but still all they have are a few petrified bones. 10,000 years isn't quite as long as 65,000,000 years ... but its still quite some time ago.

I can imagine the larger horses might have evolved because they were more resilient to the colder climate of the ice age, and the remaining tiny horses just couldn't keep up. Despite the misnomer, Dire Wolves were actually -smaller- than coyotes or grey wolves, with bigger heads and jaws but much shorter legs. Bigger seems to be better to survive cold, as body heat is retained more easily.

And yeah, thank goodness they are back. Mustangs are boo-ti-ful! If only humans would stop trying to exterminate the wilderness we have left. It might also help to also try and stamp out some of the introduced species of both flora and fauna. Around here, I'm tempted to get a shovel and attack some scotchbroom that is taking over everything. I used to think nothing could take out blackberries, but even they don't stand up to the scotchbroom that seems to choke everything out ...