The surprising series of presentation of animals known to our ancestors continues with none other than the wild Mongolian donkey (Equus hemionus hemionus) or the colun, whose western populations lived on the Romanian territories, as attested by a series of osteological, Botanical, toponymic, historical and popular evidence. In the cemetery of Hamangia culture from Cernavoda were discovered the remains of six colonies.
At Techirghiol, 22 fossil remains were exhumed. The Romanian zootoponym records the colun since the Middle Ages. On January 29, 1322, the village of Colun near Sibiu is mentioned. In Moldavia, it is founded on May 27, 1443, near Studinet, the village "where Colunu was".
Other villages with the same name are in the counties of Vaslui, Bacau, Botosani, Soroca (in Bessarabia). In Wallachia, the wild donkey was known and hunted in today's counties Dambovita, Buzau, Olt and Ilfov.
The early disappearance of the wild Mongolian donkey or colun from the fauna of our country is due to the improvement of weapons, the crossbow first of all, followed by the large-scale belonging of firearms. We can not know for sure when the colun disappeared from the Romanian territories.
The fact that Dimitrie Cantemir knows him, but does not include him among the animals in Descriptio Moldaviae, is an additional argument that this species of wild donkey disappeared at the end of the seventeenth century. The folk tradition has found in several Teleorman villages the ancient custom of using colun dung in smoking and enchantments.
The colun is in danger of total extinction at present. Herds in the Badkis and Barsa Kelmes reserves in Kazakhstan have been decimated by poachers. In 2008, there were about 4,500 colonies in reserves in Mongolia and northern China.
