The Distant Ancestors of Modern Horses Had Hooved Toes

Heritage Daily, University of Bristol ^ | June 22, 2023 | Markus Milligan

[SunkenCiv]

Image Credit : Caz41985 - CC BY-SA 4.0

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[SunkenCiv]

[soozla]

Those of us that know/own/handle horses have seen the rudimentary prehistoric markings that show up on some....i.e. front limb striping, ergots, dorsal stripes, etc. Funny to think that after all these thousands of years of evolution, it still stares you right in the face, some days — if you know what you are looking at!!

[Doctor Congo]

Decades ago when I was young me and a female friend were joking with another colleague about how old he was. When he mentioned he had a horse when he was young, my friend said “what was it, an eohippus?”. Young and nerdy, we thought that was hilarious. Still makes me giggle.

[airborne]

So, like Hillary has.

😊

[gundog]

A high school friend’s older brother was catching some flak from their dad because his chemistry grades weren’t the best. His dad said “I always got As in chemistry.” The retort was “Yeah, but back then there were only four elements.”

[CtBigPat]

[Leep]

[Grimmy]

Am I the only one that, when first seeing that pic of the hoof, thought... “that’s a strange place for camel toe”.

[Reily]

Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus was polydactyl. Born with vestigial toes. it does happen.

https://theperfecthoof.blogspot.com/2014/11/horse-toes.html

[Tell It Right]

Digitized rendering of an ancient cave drawing showing a rider on the multi-toed horse:

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks all!

[higgmeister]

The Distant Ancestors of Modern Horses Had Hooved Toes

I learned about that when I was in first grade in 1960.   Why is this even anything to post?

[SunkenCiv]

So why did you read it?

[Larry Lucido]

[null and void]

Kamala toe?

[higgmeister]

So why did you read it?

I read the headline and wanted to make the comment that this has been in the natural history books and in museums for at least a century.

Then when I read it, I saw that the article implies that.

The team's findings, which have been published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science, solidify the longstanding understanding that these toes have indeed been entirely lost during the course of evolution.

The headline reads like clickbait.

[SunkenCiv]

These are new findings. You didn’t learn them in 1960.

[higgmeister]

These are new findings. You didn't learn them in 1960.

That is just not true.

The article says that they were debunking a recent claim "made in a separate paper published in the same journal in 2018, which proposed that the toes might have been somehow retained within the (single) hoof."

From the article above you posted ...

solidify the longstanding understanding that these toes have indeed been entirely lost during the course of evolution.

That means it was already long known and the new research only re-verified their understanding.

[SunkenCiv]

Yes, so, it’s a new finding.