title: Social organization of feral horses.
abstract: The basic social unit in feral horses is the family group consisting of one stallion, one to a few unrelated mares and their foals. Surplus stallions associate in bachelor groups. Stallions are instrumental in bringing mares together in a unit which then persists even without a stallion. The similarity of social organization in populations living in a variety of different habitats indicates that feral horses have reverted to the habits of their wild ancestors, and that domestication has had no influence on this basic behavioural feature.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D005260:Female; D006736:Horses / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal; D012919:Social Behavior; D013731:Territoriality