Bayard
Bayard's JournalBeloved Chincoteague ponies' mythical origins may be real
The discovery of a fossil horse tooth in Haiti has given surprising credence to the idea the horses escaped from a Spanish shipwreck off Virginia around 1750.
On Virginia’s Chincoteague Island, wild ponies reign supreme. These compact, colorful horses with shaggy manes live in small herds of a stallion and several mares, combing the beaches and snacking on marsh grasses. Popular tourist draws, these ponies were made famous by Marguerite Henry’s 1947 novel Misty of Chincoteague. Each July, tens of thousands of people visit to watch hundreds of the horses swim across the channel from nearby Assateague Island, after which the equines are sold at auction to keep the population in check.
Despite their celebrity, the ponies’ origin is shrouded in mystery. Local lore claims the ponies are descended from horses that swam ashore following the sinking of a Spanish galleon off the Virginia coast sometime around 1750.
But with no documentation of the lost ship, many historians believe the ponies are instead the progeny of runaway livestock, meaning that their origins are much more recent.
Now, DNA preserved in a fossilized horse tooth found 1,200 miles away in the Caribbean may lend credence to this supposedly mythical shipwreck. In a study published today in the journal PLOS One, researchers posit that the tooth belonged to a cousin of the ponies roving Virginia and Maryland’s barrier islands.
Importantly, both the Caribbean horse and Chincoteague ponies share an evolutionary lineage that originated in Bronze Age Spain, says study co-author Nicolas Delsol, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Florida.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/famous-chincoteague-ponies-may-actually-descend-from-a-spanish-shipwreck?rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF&cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Animals_20220728
One of my first horse books: "Misty of Chincoteague."
Adam Schiff on TFG's comments about him
Yesterday afternoon, the twice-impeached disgraced former president was back at it. This time, at his America First Summit.
In the space of an hour-long speech, here’s just some of what Donald Trump said about me, and let me tell you, the repeated attacks were a doozy.
Let’s take Trump’s insults one by one. First comes the attack on my character:
“He knows it’s a hoax. Not a stupid person, an evil person, a sick person, in my opinion.”
Next comes the childish insults:
"He stood pompously before the microphones, his head, as you know, I feel, shaped like a watermelon."
Wait a minute. A few months ago he was calling me a pencil neck. Now it’s watermelon head? A watermelon head on top of a pencil neck — now that’s a pretty tough balancing act.
Finally, Trump makes it clear that I’m apparently not his type:
“He’s quite an unattractive man. Now, they’ll get me in trouble for that, because by saying he’s unattractive, they’ll say that’s a horrible thing to say.
Oh Donald, you wound me. (For the record, my wife, Eve, says I’m very handsome. So there. She also had a few choice things to say about Trump, which I can’t reproduce here).
It might be funny if he wasn’t the former president. It would be, maybe just a little sad and pathetic. But this infantile man is still the most powerful man in the GOP. Which means we cannot laugh off his attacks.
Donald Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s telling his supporters and most devoted MAGA base to demonize his enemies. And he’s repeatedly targeted me because he apparently thinks I’m “smart” and therefore effective, that is, a threat to him. Four attacks in just the last week.
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