Post by another specialist on Aug 11, 2008 19:48:43 GMT
1911 Equus (Asinus) hemionus finschi Matschie. North-
east of Zaisan Nor
Description: The height at withers is 110–130cm. The
dorsal stripe has a clear white border on either side,
which becomes obfuscated with age and eventually
disappears. At least the lower 30% of flank is whitish.
The white wedge between the haunch and flank is
clear, white, but does not reach the spine. The legs are
strongly infused with body tone. The white zone on the
muzzle occupies nearly half of the snout-to-ear distance.
On the head, the demarcation between reddish tone of
the face and the white of the interramal region cuts
diagonally across the jaw angle. In the skull, the orbit
sits high and tends to interrupt the dorsal outline,
whilst the nasals are low and straight; the highest point
on the profile is just behind the posterior margin of the
orbits.
Localities: Urungu, 350km south-west of Kobdo; Ebi
Nor; Dzungaria; “Desert Kirgisorum”; Kichik-Ulan-
Ussu, west of L. Barkul, N.Tienshan. A head-skin in
the London collection from Golodnaig Steppe,
Bokhara (London Zoo, 1907–1916) is identified with
this subspecies, rather than E. h. kulan, because the
white on the muzzle extends fully halfway to the eye,
and the same is true of two skins from the Zaisan Nor
region in Berlin (one of them being the type of
finschi).
Groves and Mazák (1967) called this subspecies
Equus hemionus hemionus, but recently it has
been argued by Denzau and Denzau (1999) that
Transbaikalian dziggetai were “grading”, like those
from the Gobi, so the disruptively-coloured form has
to be called E. h. castaneus. Groves and Ryder (2000)
accepted this argument.
There is, unfortunately, no recent evidence that
this attractively patterned subspecies continues to exist.
www.earthscape.org/p3/ES14412/equid_ch8.pdf
east of Zaisan Nor
Description: The height at withers is 110–130cm. The
dorsal stripe has a clear white border on either side,
which becomes obfuscated with age and eventually
disappears. At least the lower 30% of flank is whitish.
The white wedge between the haunch and flank is
clear, white, but does not reach the spine. The legs are
strongly infused with body tone. The white zone on the
muzzle occupies nearly half of the snout-to-ear distance.
On the head, the demarcation between reddish tone of
the face and the white of the interramal region cuts
diagonally across the jaw angle. In the skull, the orbit
sits high and tends to interrupt the dorsal outline,
whilst the nasals are low and straight; the highest point
on the profile is just behind the posterior margin of the
orbits.
Localities: Urungu, 350km south-west of Kobdo; Ebi
Nor; Dzungaria; “Desert Kirgisorum”; Kichik-Ulan-
Ussu, west of L. Barkul, N.Tienshan. A head-skin in
the London collection from Golodnaig Steppe,
Bokhara (London Zoo, 1907–1916) is identified with
this subspecies, rather than E. h. kulan, because the
white on the muzzle extends fully halfway to the eye,
and the same is true of two skins from the Zaisan Nor
region in Berlin (one of them being the type of
finschi).
Groves and Mazák (1967) called this subspecies
Equus hemionus hemionus, but recently it has
been argued by Denzau and Denzau (1999) that
Transbaikalian dziggetai were “grading”, like those
from the Gobi, so the disruptively-coloured form has
to be called E. h. castaneus. Groves and Ryder (2000)
accepted this argument.
There is, unfortunately, no recent evidence that
this attractively patterned subspecies continues to exist.
www.earthscape.org/p3/ES14412/equid_ch8.pdf
