Equine Veterinarian in Vermont

Web Topics

Medical Info

Pics and Videos

Products

Return to Home

Featured article:

Insulin Resistance in Medical Info

The Flehmen Response

Thumper, the Spotted Draft,
shovels his paddock.

EQUINE EVOLUTION

Evolution of the equine foot

"Dawn Horse"

The Przewalski breed

This undomesticated breed has been successfully re-established in Mongolian national parks.

EQUINE EVOLUTION

The scientific name of the modern horse of today is Equus caballus and this animal has been present on the earth for about one million years. It’s earliest ancestors however lived over 60 million years ago. There were numerous changes that occurred over this period of time that changed a small rodent like creature into the stunning animal that is the horse as we know it today. The earliest fossils of the horse (termed "eohippus", meaning "dawn horse") were found in England in 1830. These fossils were of a small animal, only about 1 foot tall that had a sheep-like head and large hindquarters much like a jack rabbit. It also had 4 toes on each forelimb and 3 toes on each hind leg all of which were covered by a heavy hoof-like cuticle. These creatures had soft teeth and were quite prolific. These original fossils were so unlike modern horses that they were first incorrectly classified as rodents
Over the course of about 30 million years this eohippus changed into what was called "mesohippus". This animal was somewhat taller (about 2 feet) and had soft teeth because it lived in swampy conditions and ate leaves, bark and tubers. Another change that occurred in this animal was that now there were only 3 toes on both the fore and hind legs.
Great changes in geography over the next 20 million years led to significant evolutionary changes in the horse as well. The next identified precursor to the modern horse was termed "merychippus" and this animal had hard teeth (due to changes in swamps into grasslands and the animal now becoming a grazer). Additionally these animals now were beginning to show the single toe of the more modern horse with the side toes becoming vestigial (to become the "splint bones" of the modern horse).
During the "great ice age" of about 5 million years ago the horse, as it was, became extinct in the northern hemisphere along with other prehistoric animals such as the rhinoceros, camel, saber toothed tiger, elephant and mastodon. Fossils in Europe and Asia however have been found that indicate the evolution of merychippus into the modern horse of today.
Over those 60 million years then the greatest changes to occur were an increase in size, the change from soft to hard teeth and the loss of the number of toes from 4 to 1.
Horses were first domesticated in Europe and Asia around 500 BC and were brought to the "new world" by Columbus into 1494. The Spanish invaders (DeSoto) brought the horse to the northern hemisphere in about 1539.

About us

Steve B. Levine has been an equine only veterinarian for 25 years graduating from Cornell University Veterinary School (with a residency in equine surgery from UC Davis, Ca.) practicing first as an equine surgeon in N.H. then moving to Vt. to start Burlington Equine. Since 2000 he has served NE Vermont and NW New Hampshire based in Danville. Emergency services and Saturday appts are available. Questions about your horses can be discussed via phone or email. Email-- danvillevermont@hotmail.com