Beloved 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."
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I live less than 3hrs away but have never seen them.
Take many pictures!
We shared more books than I can count as little kids. Her mother, my aunt, got me a Little Golden Book on every weekly grocery shopping trip. And our grandmother, who was a teacher, not only got us books, but read them to us, too, long after we learned to read ourselves. 
You and I were fortunate to come from families of readers and book lovers. 
Label: Homestead Records – HMS 006
Format:
Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single
Country: US
Released: 1984
Genre: Rock
Style: Alternative Rock
