Lord Morton’s mare was an

equid hybrid Equid hybrids, also called hybrid equines, are created from the crossing of members from the horse family such as a horse, donkey and zebra.Equid Hybrids. (2014, June). Retrieved from http://www.best-top10-list.com/view/article/2811/equid-hybrids H ...

and once an often-noticed example in the history of

evolutionary theory Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...

. In 1820,

George Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

, 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 an extinct 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 mtDNA ...

(a now extinct subspecies of the

plains zebra The plains zebra (''Equus quagga'', formerly ''Equus burchellii'') is the most common and geographically widespread species of zebra. Its range is fragmented, but spans much of southern and eastern Africa south of the Sahara. Six or seven subspec ...

), he had bred an Arabian chestnut mare with a quagga

stallion A stallion is an adult male horse that has not been gelded ( castrated). Stallions follow the conformation and phenotype of their breed, but within that standard, the presence of hormones such as testosterone may give stallions a thicker, "cre ...

and that, subsequently, the same

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equidae, 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 th ...

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 sexual reproduction, sexual or asexual reproduction. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny. This can refer to a set of simultaneous offspring ...

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'' () is a lost epic poem of Ancient Greek literature. It is named after Telegonus, the son of Odysseus by Circe, whose name ("born far away") is indicative of his birth on Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of Ithaca. It was part o ...

in heritability:

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

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 M ...

'' (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 (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

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 is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or locus, on a DNA molecule. Alleles can differ at a single position through single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), but they can also have insertions and deletions ...

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

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

dun Dun most commonly refers to: *Dun gene, which produces a brownish-gray color (dun) in horses and other Equidae * Dun (fortification), an ancient or medieval fort Dun or DUN may also refer to: Places Scotland * Dun, Angus, a civil parish in ...

coat color.

Notes

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

See also

Notes