Equine embryology: an inventory of unanswered questions

Carl Hartman's title of 47 years ago is invoked in tribute to his first recovery of a bovine embryo 30 years before that, and his legacy of an emphasis on the value of descriptive and comparative studies in reproductive biology. The horse's qualification as a farm animal has waned since those times but, in a conference understandably dominated by research in ruminants and pigs, there are lessons to be learned from some peculiarities of equine embryonic development. Morphological and physiological features of the conceptus and its interaction with its environment during the first month of pregnancy are described and discussed, with emphasis on conceptus expansion, experimental study of the capsule and its associated proteins, and steroid production and metabolism by the various tissues within the conceptus. It is also suggested that easy access to entire conceptuses at advanced stages of development in horses offers valuable opportunities for comparative investigation of early organogenesis and fetal membrane differentiation and, possibly, how they are affected by embryo manipulation in vitro.