Mustang, Cold Creek, Nevada

A dark mustang on a sagebrush ridge near Cold Creek, in the Spring Mountains northwest of Las Vegas, with snow on the ranges beyond. This is the classic image of the American wild horse, and Nevada is its heartland: more than half the wild horses on federal land live in the state. Mustangs descend from horses that escaped or were released by Spanish colonists, ranchers, miners and the cavalry. They are protected under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which rounds up horses it counts as surplus, a practice that remains fiercely debated.