Editor’s Note: Horse Sense

Sarah Eshleman
Editor in Chief

This summer, at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington DC, I inspected the Przewalski’s horses, recalling what I’d recently learned about the stocky taupe equines.

Over the past several months, while I researched for an article on horses, Karina Altman, AiG’s zoo content manager (and my go-to critter expert), had explained the taxonomy of the horse kind . . . several times. I feared it might come to charts and visuals to help me keep it all straight.

“Where do Przewalski’s fit?” I texted Karina at one point. “A horse breed?”

She quickly responded. “They are not a breed. They are a subspecies of horse.”

“Would a domestic horse also be a subspecies, whereas a Morgan horse is a breed?”

“Correct. The domestic horse subspecies includes all horse breeds.”

Emboldened by my correct guess, I ventured to ask, “Are zebras a species?”

“Yes, but there are three species of zebra, and some of the species have subspecies.”

“Oh. My. Word!” I exclaimed, my ignorance opening before me in increasingly minuscule levels.

Karina graciously reassured me. “Taxonomy is a dumpster fire of chaos.”

“Linnaeus tried,” I said, invoking the name of the eighteenth-century scientist responsible for the classification system.

God created. Carl Linnaeus organized. Nature resists.

Though animals buck our taxonomical boxes, humans persist in classifying creation because it’s wrapped up in God’s command to steward the earth. To name something is to know it—and to know creation is to know something about the Creator’s unbridled love for variation. He wove such genetic potential into the original animal kinds that today we still see new species emerge.

But like any good artist, God reins in his creativity with boundaries: animals only reproduce according to their kinds. Przewalski’s horse, zebra, Thoroughbred, mule, or palomino—a horse is a horse. Now that’s a concept even I can comprehend!

In this issue, Karina talks about hybrids, species breeding with other species, breaking the rules of evolution while obeying God’s design. Check out her article “Out of Line.” And while you’re at it, trot on over to Kids Answers to learn “The Wild History of Horses.” It’s a rip-roarin’ ride you don’t want to miss!