Lord Morton’s mare was an equid hybrid and once an often-noticed example in the history of

evolutionary theory Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

. In 1820,

George Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton George Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton, KT, FRS, FRSE, FSA (3 April 1761 – 17 July 1827) was a British nobleman. Life He was the son of Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton, and Katherine Hamilton. He succeeded to the title Earl of Morton in 17 ...

, F.R.S., reported to the President of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

that, being desirous of domesticating the

quagga The quagga ( or ) (''Equus quagga quagga'') is a subspecies of the plains zebra that was endemic to South Africa until it was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic ...

(a now extinct subspecies of the

plains zebra The plains zebra (''Equus quagga'', formerly ''Equus burchellii''), also known as the common zebra, is the most common and geographically widespread species of zebra. Its range is fragmented, but spans much of southern and eastern Africa south o ...

), he had bred an Arabian chestnut mare with a quagga stallion and that, subsequently, the same

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than fo ...

was bred with a black stallion and Lord Morton found that the

offspring In biology, offspring are the young creation of living organisms, produced either by a single organism or, in the case of sexual reproduction, two organisms. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This ca ...

had strange stripes in the legs like the quagga. The Royal Society published Lord Morton's letter in its ''Philosophical Transactions'', 1821. In the same issue "Particulars of a Fact, nearly similar to that related by Lord Morton, communicated to the President, in a letter from Daniel Giles, Esq." reported that in a litter of a black and white sow, by a "boar of the wild breed, the chestnut colour of the boar strongly prevailed" in some of the piglets, even to the two subsequent litters of that sow. These circumstantial reports seemed to confirm the ancient idea of

telegony The ''Telegony'' (Greek: , ''Tēlegoneia''; la, Telegonia) is a lost ancient Greek epic poem about Telegonus, son of Odysseus by Circe. His name ("born far away") is indicative of his birth on Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of Ithaca. It was p ...

in heritability:

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

cited the example in ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

'' (1859) and ''

The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication ''The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication'' is a book by Charles Darwin that was first published in January 1868. A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants but it al ...

'' (1868). The concept of telegony, that the seed of a male could continue to affect the offspring of a female, whether animal or human, had been inherited from

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

and remained a legitimate theory until experiments in the 1890s confirmed

Mendelian inheritance Mendelian inheritance (also known as Mendelism) is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later popularize ...

. Biologists now explain the phenomenon of Lord Morton's mare as the result of dominant and recessive

alleles An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution. ::"The chrom ...

. The mare and black stallion each carried genes for the striped markings on the foal, but the markings were hidden in the parent animals by dominant genes for normal color. Striped "

primitive markings Primitive markings are a group of hair coat markings and qualities seen in several equine species, including horses, donkeys, and asses. In horses, they are associated with primitive breeds, though not limited to such breeds. The markings are ...

" are in fact commonly seen in domesticated horses, particularly those with a

dun A dun is an ancient or medieval fort. In Ireland and Britain it is mainly a kind of hillfort and also a kind of Atlantic roundhouse. Etymology The term comes from Irish ''dún'' or Scottish Gaelic ''dùn'' (meaning "fort"), and is cognat ...

coat color.

Notes

{{Mammal hybrids Applied genetics History of evolutionary biology Individual mares Equid hybrids Horse history and evolution

See also

Notes