Paleozoologists have been able to piece together a more complete outline of the modern horse’s evolutionary lineage than that of any other animal.
The horse belongs to the order Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), the members of which all share hooved feet and an odd number of toes on each foot, as well as mobile upper lips and a similar tooth structure. This means that horses share a common ancestry with tapirs and rhinoceroses.
The perissodactyls arose in the late Paleocene, less than 10 million years after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. This group of animals appears to have been originally specialized for life in tropical forests, but whereas tapirs and, to some extent, rhinoceroses, retained their jungle specializations, modern horses are adapted to life on drier land, in the much-harsher climatic conditions of the steppes. Other species of Equus are adapted to a variety of intermediate conditions.
The early ancestors of the modern horse walked on several spread-out toes, an accommodation to life spent walking on the soft, moist grounds of primeval forests.
As grass species began to appear and flourish, the equids’ diets shifted from foliage to grasses, leading to larger and more durable teeth. At the same time, as the steppes began to appear, the horse’s predecessors needed to be capable of greater speeds to outrun predators. This was attained through the lengthening of limbs and the lifting of some toes from the ground in such a way that the weight of the body was gradually placed on one of the longest toes, the third.
Of course, these adaptations were not by choice or will but by natural selection and occasional mutation, part of Darwin’s “theory.”
He looks so sad. Why the long face?