Riwoche horse

[6] The horse was named by European explorers after its home region, Riwoche County, in Kham, northeastern Tibet.

[7] The breed was first observed by non-Tibetans in 1995 in an isolated, 27 kilometres (17 mi)-long valley, reachable only by crossing a 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) mountain pass, by a team of explorers led by the French ethnologist Michel Peissel.

Casas suggested that one explanation for their archaic form was because the valley where they were found is closed off on both sides by very tall passes that rose to an altitude where horses were unlikely to migrate naturally because there was nothing to eat.

[1] Peissel told The New York Times, "They looked completely archaic, like the horses in prehistoric cave paintings.

The angular shape of the body, and the head in particular, is like that of the horses found in the Stone Age cave paintings.

"[2] On the same expedition, Peissel also observed other isolated and unique species of megafauna, including a rare white-lipped deer, and located what is believed to be the source of the Mekong river.