Image Credit : Caz41985 - CC BY-SA 4.0
Posted on 06/26/2023 1:12:29 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Ancestors such as Eocene Hyracotherium exhibited foot structures resembling those of present-day tapirs, featuring four toes at the front and three at the back. Each toe was equipped with its own hoof and supported by an underlying foot pad.
In contrast, contemporary equids such as horses, asses, and zebras possess a solitary toe, which is a remnant of the original third toe on each foot. This lone toe is protected by a sturdy keratinous hoof, while the underside of the hoof features a triangular frog that functions as a shock absorber.
To unravel the mystery behind the lost digits, a team of international scientists hailing from the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Netherlands conducted a thorough analysis. They examined both hoof prints and foot bones from contemporary horses as well as fossil records...
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. This contradicts the suggestion made in a separate paper published in the same journal in 2018, which proposed that the toes might have been somehow retained within the hoof.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
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!!
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.
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.”
Am I the only one that, when first seeing that pic of the hoof, thought... “that’s a strange place for camel toe”.
Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus was polydactyl. Born with vestigial toes. it does happen.
https://theperfecthoof.blogspot.com/2014/11/horse-toes.html
Thanks all!
I learned about that when I was in first grade in 1960. Why is this even anything to post?
So why did you read it?
Kamala toe?
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.
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.
Yes, so, it’s a new finding.
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