Equestrian and the North American Eohippus

Equestrian and the North American Eohippus:

The Eohippus was a type of horse that is believed to have lived around 60 Million years ago in the North American regions. The Eohippus is known as the oldest relation of Equus caballus, considered the true horse. This would be a Cro-Magnon portrayal of this unique and fascinating animal. It has been known from drawings in the Caverns of Font-De-Gaume, Dordogne, France. (There are also ancient drawings of archery in these same caverns)

The Little Eohippus, this creature was approximately the size of what we know today as the fox terrier dog. This is the oldest known ancestor of the of the modern day horse, this chain is what descended from the Eocene mammal to the Equus caballus. Fossil remains can be traced back almost 6 million years, with minor gaps between sections of its development. The Eohippus can be described as having a head like a sheep, hindquarters like a jackrabbit, and toes of multiple proportion, four toes on each forefoot and three on each of there hind feet. All of there fourteen toes were equipped with pads and of a heavy cuticle shaped almost like miniature hooves. The Eohippus was very prolific and was known across the Northern Hemisphere and throughout Asia and Europe, Even to the British Isles, here it was known as Hyracotherium because to them it resembled a Hare.

In our western plains of America, Say over an extended period of thirty million years, The descendants of Eohippus came about and evolved through many stages into whats known as Mesohippus, a much larger animal. The height of this animal increased to an astounding 24 inches, of course the head became more horselike, the legs lengthened, as well as increasing the animals speed. Through this evolutionary period, each foot had three hoofed and padded toes. There teeth were still short, very low crowned, comparatively soft, these were adequately placed for there diet of new bark, leaves and tubers, still not suited to the grazing of grass and such.

Twenty million years later, great geological upheavals occurred in these western mountains, this of course made for many changes in this climate and ecology of the plains to the east. Forests became open plains covered with lush grass, this presented many new problems for Mesohippus genre. Silica in the stems and seeds of this grass and amounts of sand and dirt caused rapid wear to there soft teeth, This in turn meant rapid adaption of the animal to these new conditions, if Mesohippus was to survive. From here the Mesohippus evolved into Merychippus, these had high crowned teeth, these were covered in a much heavier harder outer layer. This new horse ancestor was much larger, approximately 42 inches, about the size of a small pony. After Merychippus, there seems to be a huge gap in the fossil records, this gap goes between 6 Million years to about 600,000 B.C. There are no fossils of the evolving horse in North America through this epic time period, this is around the time of the Great Ice Age, at that time ice covered much of North America and Northern Europe with great glaciers.

When these ice glaciers melted, there were resulting floods that washed away the surface deposits that would have contained the prolific fossil remains for other species in this time period. The story’s we have always heard, was that all the horses that are in North America are of European designation. Obviously this is not the case, or of likely prudence. Some believe that the absence of those said fossils, also means the absence of horses in North America all together, Others still expect that we will find these remains by further digging.

During this period of missing records, and those only in Eurasia, we know that Merychippus evolved into Equus caballus, what we know as the true horse, with a single toe to each foot and equipped with one single hoof. From what we know of the Ice Age, There was a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia, This would have furnished an easy passage from one place to the other for various animal species.

In this we see that it is more than possible that horses crossed over into Asia during this time, Hence they could have crossed back over to North America again. This theory is greatly debated, But it is the theory I choose to believe.

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