The way of a horse's going is the truth of him.

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Migration Patterns of Early Horses

These maps illustrate the migration of horses around the world; from their beginnings in North America and back again.  The central plains of North America were ideal habitat for the survival and growth of horses.  

                           58 Million Years Ago                                                20 Million Years Ago

Pressure from hunters and competition from other species led to a decline in population.  The Bering crossing could be considered an "escape" from extinction because that was the eventual fate of the horses that remained in North America.

10 Million Years Ago and the Behring Land Bridge Crossing

The spread through Europe and Arabia

The top groups of horses were those most likely descended from Equus Pony Types 1 and 2 while those that migrated south were in all likelihood descended from Equus Pony Types 3 and 4, the modern Turkoman and Arabians.

Around 10,000 years ago, horses disappeared from North America.  Climate and pressure from human hunters were the probable causes.

               The spread through the Steppes, Europe, and the return home to America (1500s).

(maps from the PBS special "Wild Horses: An American Romance")

In 1974, Peter Whybrow of the Natural History Museum and Andrew Hill, Yale, discovered fossil remains of Miocene mammals including those of the earliest Miocene horses to cross the land bridge.  Similar NHM studies show that the Arabian Peninsula was the cross-roads at which diversification, and probably re-invasion of animals between Africa and southwestern Asia occurred during the Miocene. Animals probably used the Ethiopian-Yemen isthmus and the ephemeral Miocene land connection across the Arabian Gulf to migrate to and from Africa and Asia via Arabia.

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