For thousands of years, Przewalski’s horses ran free on the steppes of Europe and Asia. Today, only 3,000 of them remain, the vast majority in nature reserves.
Drones reveal social structures
Now researchers have used drones to follow a herd of almost 300 horses living in Hortobágy National Park in Hungary.
– We have been able to reconstruct the entire social structure of the herd, says Katalin Ozogány, behavioral ecologist at the Hungarian university Debreceni Egyetem.
The herd in Hortobágy consists of several harems, each consisting of a stallion, several mares and foals. In addition, there is also a group of young stallions, so-called bachelors.
Kills newborn foals
The young stallions mostly run at the outer edges of the herd and are a constant source of worry in the group, as they constantly try to take over the harem from the other stallions. The fight sometimes goes so far that they try to kill newborn foals.
– Sometimes we see that these bachelors run into the middle of the herd to chase a mare, but then the stallions of the harem work together to scare them away.
But not all stallions cooperate, only those that are closely related, reveals Katalin Ozogány’s research published in Nature Communications.
Older stallions are valuable
The horse researchers also saw that the most long-lived of the horses’ harems are led by older stallions. The drones’ videos show that they take their place in the middle of the herd, where they are most protected from both young horses and predators.
– It shows that the experience of the older stallions is valuable for keeping the whole group together, says Jenny Loberg, ethologist at Nordens Ark outside Lysekil.
The understanding of how the horses’ harem works can be important in the work to preserve the species.
– This also makes you think about what our modern horses would be like if they were allowed to create their own alliances and harems, says Jenny Loberg.