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The Missing Equine Link: How the Modern Horse Came to Be
03/23/2009
Indeed, basic evolution states that all mammals have evolved from ancestral links, forming one long chain of development that stretches back to the primordial soup. So for a horse, what are these equine links? Where did the modern horse come from?
All it takes is one look at a Clydesdale and a Shetland to realize that the modern horse must not have always looked like it does today. Indeed, basic evolution states that all mammals have evolved from ancestral links, forming one long chain of development that stretches back to the primordial soup. So for a horse, what are these equine links? Where did the modern horse come from?
The first of the evolutionary equine links is the Hyracotherium, which dates back 52 million years ago and hails from North America. These ancient equine links were roughly the size of a raccoon, and had a much shorter hair. Hyracotherium equine links foraged around for soft leaves, fruit, and generally anything they could scavenge. Unlike the modern horse, our Hyracotherium equine links did not have fused leg bones, giving them greater flexibility and rotation. Rather than one fused hoof per leg, ancient equine links had one hoof on each of their five toes (much like an elephant has today)), and a soft padding underneath similar to a dog’s.
After about 2 million years, the Hyracotherium equine links began to evolve into the Orohippus species. Meaning “mountain horse,” the Orohippus equine links stayed small, but became slimmer and elongated, especially in the head and torso. These equine links kept the same soft-padded foot but the fifth, outer toe of the Hyracotherium disappeared. The teeth of the Orohippus more closely resemble the equine teeth of today: more molars with raised ridges. This indicates the Orohippus equine links were eating a tougher plant material, one that required more chewing to break down.
Over the next 10 million years, the Earth quite predictably began to change its climate, and so to do equine links begin to change. As North America yielded more dry areas and grassland, equine links known as the Mesohippus (“middle horse”) began to appear. These equine links were larger, and their legs longer, as they now had more room and more need to run, now that they were exposed to predators in the newly open landscape. Mesohippus equine links walked on three toes, with the middle toe being the biggest and strongest, and the fourth toe dwindling away to a vestigial nub. Where the first equine link, the Hyracotherium, had an arched back like a cat, the Mesohippus’s back was beginning to smooth out. The Mesohippus equine links had larger skulls to house their bigger brains (as finding food was becoming more difficult, and required more thought). One of the most important developments in these equine links was the appearance of a fossa, which is a shallow depression on a horse’s skull, and appears quite prominently in modern horse species.
After this time, equine links go through a series of small changes and breaks that bring them increasingly close to the modern day Equus. This diversification of equine links (occurring 24–5.3 million years ago) allowed the equine links to spread across the globe, inhabiting virtually every continent and condition. The front teeth began to lose prominence as molars began to replace premolars. The phase began to elongate, and the front toe began to carry the entire weight of the equine links. The final ancestral equine link, the Parahippus, lived in North America and was about the size of a pony.
The modern day Equus split from the donkey and zebra family about 2 million years ago. While the oldest equine links were located in Italy, many early equine links lived in North America until 11,000 BC, when they mysteriously disappeared from just about everywhere but Kazakhstan and the southern Ukraine. While no one can be certain when humans began trying to domesticate our equine links, it is estimated that it occurred between 9400 BC and 2000 BC. Genetic evidence suggests that the closest equine links to modern domestic horses, Przewalski's horse, lived in Germany, Siberia, and Alaska, and all came from a single arctic-equine species. It wasn’t until the 16th century that the modern horse returned to North America, the land of its birth.
