Off the coast of Maryland and Virginia you’ll find a pair of barrier islands, Assateague, and Chincoteague, famous for their wild pony populations. The native population of horses in north America died off during the ice ages of the Pleistocene era and no one is quite sure how these horses got to the islands. One theory is that English settlers brought them there from the mainland to avoid tax liabilities. Another is a popular folktale that the horses are descended from the survivors of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, who managed to make it to shore where they’ve proliferated ever since.