The is a criticallyendangered Japanese breed of small

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

. It is one of eight Japanese native horse breeds, and lives as a

feral horse A feral horse is a free-roaming horse of domesticated stock. As such, a feral horse is not a wild animal in the sense of an animal without domesticated ancestors. However, some populations of feral horses are managed as wildlife, and these ...

in a natural setting in a designated National Monument on Cape Toi (also known as Toimisaki) within the municipal boundaries of Kushima at the south end of

Miyazaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Miyazaki Prefecture has a population of 1,073,054 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 7,735 Square kilometre, km2 (2,986 sq mi). Miyazaki Prefecture borders ...

on the island of Kyūshū. The Misaki was made a Japanese National Natural Treasure in 1953.

History

Japanese horses are thought to derive from stock brought at several different times from various parts of the Asian mainland; the first such importations took place by the sixth century at the latest. Horses were used for farming – as pack-animals although not for draught power; until the advent of firearms in the later sixteenth century, they were much used for warfare. The horses were not large: remains of some 130 horses have been excavated from battlefields dating to the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

(1185–1333 AD); they ranged from in

withers The withers is the ridge between the shoulder blades of an animal, typically a quadruped. In many species, it is the tallest point of the body. In horses and dogs, it is the standard place to measure the animal's height. In contrast, cattle a ...

height. The breed was first identified in the historical record in 1697 when the Akizuki family of the Takanabe Clan rounded up

s and developed a pool of breeding stock. The Misaki and the area in which it lives, Cape Toi, were declared a

Natural Monument A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. Under World Commission on Protected Areas guidelines, na ...

in 1953 ( Shōwa 28).. The horses are a popular draw for tourists in the region. In 2007, the Misaki was classified as "critical-maintained" by the

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

. The population is approximately 120, up from a low of 53 individuals recorded in 1973. A genetic study of Japanese and Mongolian horse breeds in 2003 found the Misaki to be most closely related to the

Noma Noma, NoMa, or NOMA may refer to: Places * NoMa, the area North of Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., US ** NoMa–Gallaudet U station, on Washington Metro * Noma, Florida, US * NOMA, Manchester, a redevelopment in England * Noma Distr ...

Tokara The is an archipelago in the Nansei Islands, and are part of the Satsunan Islands, which is in turn part of the Ryukyu Archipelago. The chain consists of twelve small islands located between Yakushima and Amami-Oshima. The islands have a tota ...

and

Yonaguni , one of the Yaeyama Islands, is the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, lying from the east coast of Taiwan, between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean proper. The island is administered as the town of Yonaguni, Yaeyama Gun, Okin ...

breeds. In 2011, twelve horses of the Misaki herd gave positive

Coggins test Equine infectious anemia or equine infectious anaemia (EIA), also known by horsemen as swamp fever, is a horse disease caused by a retrovirus (''Equine infectious anemia virus'') and transmitted by bloodsucking insects. The virus (''EIAV'') is en ...

results for equine infectious anaemia. From the blood of one of them, the whole viral

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding g ...

was

sequenced In genetics and biochemistry, sequencing means to determine the primary structure (sometimes incorrectly called the primary sequence) of an unbranched biopolymer. Sequencing results in a symbolic linear depiction known as a sequence which suc ...

. It was found to be substantially different from the two equine infectious anaemia strains that had previously been completely sequenced.

Characteristics

The Misaki is a small dark-coloured horse, standing about at the

References

{{Portal bar, Japan, Horses Horse breeds Horse breeds originating in Japan Feral horses Natural monuments of Japan