The species is named after a Russian colonel of Polish descent, Nikolai Przhevalsky (1839–1888) (Nikołaj Przewalski in Polish). An explorer and naturalist, he obtained a skull and hide of an animal shot in 1878 in the Gobi near what is today's China-Mongolia border, and he would make an expedition into the Dzungarian Basin to observe it in the wild. In 1881, the horse received a formal scientific description and was named "Equus przevalskii" by Ivan Semyonovich Polyakov, based on Przewalski's collection and description, while in 1884, the sole exemplar of the horse in Europe was a preserved specimen in the Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. This was supplemented in 1894 when the brothers Grum-Grzhimailo returned several hides and skulls to St. Petersburg and provided a description of the horse's behavior in the wild. A number of these horses were captured around 1900 by Carl Hagenbeck and placed in zoos, and these, along with one later captive, reproduced to give rise to today's population.