Horse Trivia

The African continent has been considered as the birthplace of the human race.

Ancestor of humans who was first appeared in the African continent and travelled through to Europe and Asia. Over the years, they gradually adapted themselves to the environment of each location, then finally reached to the American continent.

The main stream of the horse evolution, on the other hand, first occurred on the North American continent.

It is believed that Equidae have already existed long before the birth of the human race. They started their long journey from the North America and spread widely through Asia, Europe and Africa.

There are huge differences in the appearance between the ancestor of horses and the modern horses, especially in their size, the shape of their body, legs and teeth.

Over a few million years, they have developed and transformed themselves into the modern horse.

Hyracotherium (Eohippus) is considered to be the earliest known member of Equidae.

It is said that the Hyracotherium (Eohippus) was already existed in the North American continent 52 million years ago. It is also called 'Akebono uma' in Japanese.

It assumed to be the fox size (25cm to 45cm) and it has already started its evolution to run faster; had relatively long legs in comparison to the body.

It had five toes on each foot but developed to four-fingered toes on each front foot and three-fingered toes on each hind foot throughout it's evolution.

In addition, the teeth of the fossil of Hyracotherium (Eohippus) has been found in a very undevel-oped form. Large molar tooth was shaped in order to scratch leaves easily.

Judging from these facts, Hyracotherium (Eohippus) is believed to have been living in the large forest of wetlands, and their main food source were soft leaves of young shoots and plants.
The Spotty coat color was to be less noticeable in the forest.

Hyracotherium (Eohippus) evolved and flourished over 2 million years.

So what are the differences in between Hyracotherium and Eohippus?

The fossil of Hyracotherium (Eohippus) was first found in England in 1830s, however, it was not considered as an ancestor of Equidae at first.

Judging from the feature of its skull, the position of eyes and the shapes of tooth, it was decided to be categorized in the family of Hyrax. (the picture of Hyrax as below)

Those fossils were named Hyracotherium which means 'similar to Hyrax', not really related to horses.

Since then similar fossils were discovered in the Europe but none was considered them as the ancient Equidae.

Then number of fossils of the ancient Equidae were found in Northern American continent.

When they lined all of those fossils up alongside with the timeline, it became very clear that how Equidae developed over the time.

Those fossils found in the North America were named something-hipps, after hipps means 'horse' in Greek language.

The oldest ancient Equidae found in Strata of the Eocene was named Eohippus.

However there is an issue.

Eohippus was recently found to be identical to an earlier-named species, Hyracotherium.

Hyracotherium became an official scientific name because in these case, earlier-name has to be used.

However, the name Eohippus has also commonly been used as it showed its position through the evolution of Equidae very well.