The black-and-white spotted "Dalmatian" horses depicted in some prehistoric European cave art may have actually existed. (Via Steve Silberman)

  • pKp

    See Spot run.

  • http://twitter.com/raumartig Michael Rattay

    They exist today…

  • Cowicide
  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BZPUF2EASKRBUSDXMNN4IRB5GA dahlia

    isn’t a spotted horse just an appaloosa?  http://www.sinosheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/appaloosa-300×288.jpg  not exactly extinct.

    i always have to wonder, when anthropologists start speculating on the meaning of things like cave paintings, why it doesn’t occur to them that maybe they are just … art.  do they have to be shamanic?  we make are now, we made art then. 

  • EvilSpirit

    I’m missing something. Given that we have contemporary illustrations of a plausible-looking animal, was there some reason to doubt that it actually existed?

  • Ipo

    The Gray horse has different genes, dear Michael Rattay.

    It’s more like a Knabstrupper ( Wikipedia ).

    • http://twitter.com/Listener43 Listener43

      I’m frankly shocked to know that we have genetic samples from the portraits of  (extinct?) horses/horse-like creatures.
      What’s next? Will the “government” tell us that there’s no alien life?

  • CGulow

    Three mini-rants:

     1 – How come I’ve never been able to locate large photographs of prehistoric cave art? For that matter, why is the local cinema only showing Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams when I’m at work?

     2 – Why do most news (paper) sites only ever have small, tiny miniscule images?

     3 – Why am I eating my own hand?

     Can anyone recommend a book with large (full page) images of European prehistoric cave art?

    • Guest

       http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/gigapan/niaux/

      • penguinchris

        Well that was disappointingly low resolution!

        to @google-92cfb38255848c044272d1ed305ea472:disqus though, call in sick to see the Herzog film, it’s excellent. I wasn’t able to see it in 3D (which I hear is unusually worthwhile) but even in 2D it was really fascinating (as Herzog films usually are).

        I suspect it will still be fascinating on blu-ray and a fairly large TV, of course, if you don’t want to skip work :)

  • geekagirl

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_complex –> causes spots on horses

    I’m with Evil Spirit.  Spotted horses have a long history, was there any reason to doubt that they were around in prehistoric times?