Talk:Equus caballus

Correct name for this taxon

There has been some discussion at https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:Village_Pump#Correct_scientific_name_for_the_(domesticated)_horse regarding the correct name for this taxon, proposed forms being Equus caballus, Equus ferus caballus and Equus caballus caballus. At time of writing the form/rank Equus caballus has been settled upon, per Groves & Grubb, 2011, ITIS (May 2023 version), and the ASM Mammal Diversity Database at this time. Equus ferus caballus is still in somewhat widespread use in the scientific literature (e.g. 3,120 hits on Google Scholar, date range 2010-2023), but less frequently than Equus caballus over the same period ("about 18,000 results"), however the "correctness" of that name presumes that caballus is a subspecies of ferus, which most current authorities do not recognise.

It should be pointed out here that MSW 3 in fact has it the other way around, with both ferus and przewalskii as subspecies of an enlarged taxon designated therein as caballus, covering both the ancestral (wild) and domesticated forms, along with (by inference) the type subspecies of the latter.). However in Groves & Grubb, 2011 it was stated that one of these authors (Peter Grubb), author of the relevant section in MSW 3, had erred in his usage of caballus as the name for the enlarged taxon concept covering both wild and domesticated horses, and should instead have used ferus (see Groves & Grubb, 2011, p. 8). Tony 1212 (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2023 (UTC)