In a number of nutrition and health articles it has been emphasised that
the horse evolved primarily as a grazing herbivore,eating a diet based on
fibre, mainly grasses and when available or in seasonal shortage horses will even browse trees, shrubs and other foliage to maintain their dietary needs. In this article we will highlight some new findings about how dietary change influenced the evolution of the horse and why horses are more adapted to a grassland life. Although natural selection and adaptation takes millions of years we should review the way we feed our horses today and how we might influence the horses continuous evolution. Paleo (prehistoric)-dental researchers at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine and the American Museum of Natural History, have completed an important new study (1) that shows that the evolutionary path of horses as we know them today was affected by the food available to their prehistoric ancestors. So the old proverb you are what you eat holds true if you give it about a million years. The evolution of the horse, Equus ferus caballus, has occurred for approximately 55-60 million years. The Equus became extinct in the New World (America) 10,000 years ago, but persisted in the Old World and was domesticated in central Asia about 6000 years ago from stock probably similar to the present day Przewalskis wild horses, Equus (ferus) przewalski (2). From studies of fossils, knowledge about the phylogeny of the horse as an herbivore have been derived and show that the first 35 million years (Eocene to early Miocene) of equine phylogeny are characterized by browsing species with a relative small body size (~10-50 kg). The remaining 20 million years (middle Miocene until the present day) are characterized by either primarily browsing/grazing or mixed feeders with a large diversification in body size (~50-500kg) (3,4). The evolutionary transformations in equids (hoofed mammals of the family Equidae, like horses, donkeys, zebras and extinct animals) may have been triggered by dramatic climatic changes (3). The areas where equids lived may have become drier, developing grasslands and savannas. These environmental changes may have contributed to the diversification of equids. The equids developed not only elongated limbs and rigid vertebral columns, which allow the animals to move quickly and economically. They also developed teeth with an increased capacity to grind grass, through hypsodonty (high crowned), increased complexity of the grinding surface and molarization of the premolars. http://www.mbequineservices.com/ dietary-changes-and-the-evolution-of- the-horse/ Horse have had to adapt and change the way they eat and what the way they eat by the changes we have in the world. The food their ancestors had may not be available to them in their time.
The influence of changes in paleoclimate on equine diet and evolution as described above has been suspected for many years but was not previously confirmed because of limitations in traditional approaches to the study of diet and tooth wear. Previous studies used chemical analyses of teeth and microscopic wear to understand what the animals were eating, but because these approaches require such laborious work, studies were limited to a few specimens at a time. In the present study Matthew Mihlbachler, Ph.D., and Nikos Solounias, Ph.D. used a new approach called mesowear that relies on the shape of the tooth, specifically sharpness of the cusps of molars (bumps on mammalian teeth) to see how theyve been worn down by chewing. By using this mesowear analysis, they were able to examine a much large sample size. They studied the teeth of 6,500 fossil horses representing 222 different populations of more than 70 extinct horse species, from 55 million years ago in North America to the extinction at the end of the last ice age.The researchers analysed the amount of tooth wear and later analysed their data alongside records of North American climate changes that would have shifted the diets from rainforest fruits and woody, leafy vegetation to the more abrasive diets found in grasslands. Horses originally evolved in North America, but became extinct about 10,000 years ago. The first horses in North America emerged about 55-60 million years ago. They were small, fox-size animals with four toes and low-crowned teeth (brachydont). They lived in a warm, moist, forest environment, and the wear on their rounded cusps matches those of fruit-eaters. Approximately 33 million years ago, the shape of horse species teeth changed, from the rounded cusps of fruit eaters, to the sharper points characteristically of leaf eaters. Around this time the climate had cooled and the forests would have displayed more open habitats. Markedly changes in the teeth of ancestral horses, which are closely related to modern horses, took place around 18 million years ago. The change in climate favouring the spread of open grasslands and required the horse species to adapt to tougher plant diets, particularly grasses. Because grasses contain silica, which is abrasive and causes increased tooth wear, horse teeth compensated by growing longer (developing high-crowned teeth). About 33 million years ago the shape of the horse species teeth changed. It went from the rounded cusps of fruit eaters to the sharper points characterically of leaf eaters. In order for the horse to keep up with their diet, they grew longer teeth to take on the tougher plant diets, particularly grasses. A new research study called mesowear relies on the shape of the tooth, specifically sharpness of the cusps of molars to see how they've been worn down by chewing.
Around 10 million years ago, horse species that maintained a fruit and leaf diet went extinct, and about 4-5 million years later also species that had a intermediate diets (part leafy and part grassy) disappeared. Only the grass-eating equids that eventually became the modern day horse (Equus ferus caballus) survived. Although the researchers underline that there were leaves and trees throughout all that time period, from 55 million years ago to the extinction. They dont know why horses left those niches.
The researchers emphasize that the modern horse is in fact a classic example of evolution through the processes of natural selection and adaptation. However, the dietary changes resulting from the changing climate took time to lead to adaptation in the horses ancestors. They found that evolutionary changes in tooth anatomy lag behind the dietary changes by a million years or more.
Conversely, some researchers have some reservation about the data and how it was interpreted. The researchers of the present study say that mesowear scores must equal grass eating, however it may also be that it indicates the openness of the environment. The idea is that vast open areas are windier and become contaminated with dust and sand, which account for higher levels of abrasive materials in the available vegetation.
The new findings are of great value to biologists and zoologists to understand more about the natural selection and adaptation processes in animal species. Nevertheless it will take more data and research to get a clearer picture of this very slow adaptation process and even then we know the history of life is not simple and never be fully determined. The study does emphasise that diet change will influence the horse evolution and so the way we feed our horse nowadays will also affect this adaptation process. We must be aware that we, humans, change diets of horses much more rapid then climate changes ever did over those millions of years. If adaptation takes more then million years then we can also understand that we are creating problems in our horses when we feeding diets that are low in fibre and high in concentrate which causes less wear of the teeth. Its therefore important we keep feeding our horses according their design, providing a basal diet high in fibre. When us humans change the diets of our horses diets we are actually changing our horses design. Because the horses adaptions changed over the years, means it can still change and may be changing as we think and we may not know it.
http://finstofeet.com/2011/11/05/634/ The horse brat also grew, reflecting a a major increase in intelligence. Horses developed a gap between their nose and eyes to have a wider view on their surroundings to watch out for predators while grazing. It also provides space for the bit to enter the mouth. Horses tendons and lower legs changed to have a connection between the bones to store elastic energy and reapply it to each stride to ae them more springy. Just like I read above in the other article, the horses teeth have changed. Their crowns evolved making them higher in order to handle tougher foods such as grasses Hooves and legs
As horses became more adapted for life on seas of rolling grass, they underwent a number of crucial anatomical changes. : these are both adaptations for a cursorial lifestyle. The arrangement of tendons in the lower leg and the connections between the leg bones work to store elastic energy and reapply it with each stride (the so-called springing step). Horses have even evolved a way to expend less energy standing up than sitting down.
Grasses are hardy plants and have evolved various means of protecting themselves from plant predators. They inflict heavy wear and damage upon the teeth of herbivores. And, as a consequence, herbivores like the horse, have evolved high crowned teeth, covered in cementum with folds of enamel (hypsodonty) to deal with the tough food. Many of premolars changed to molars. There is also a long gap between the incisors and the premolars that is absent in the very earliest horses, like Hyracotherium. This adds distance between the nose and the eyes, allowing the horse to keep an eye out for predators whilst grazing. Rather fortitiously, it also provides space for the insertion of a bit, an important part of horse riding.
The Horse brain also increased in relative size over the course of the last 50 million years, although the precise reasons for this change are uncertain. It may reflect a major increase in intelligence (a notoriously difficult concept to define in animals to begin with) or may be related to the increasing complexity of the sensory apparatus of the horse.
All hoofed mammals fit into the cladistic group, Ungulata. Hooves are, essentially, the modified tips of toes and differences in the structure of the foot can be used to divvy up the ungulata into two broad categories: even toed ungulates and odd toed ungulates. Animals in the first category sport two major weight-bearing toes the third and fourth toes of each leg. This group includes camels, goats, cattle, deer, pigs and a number of other hoofed animals. Odd toed ungulates, on the other hand, support themselves, for the most part, on one toe per foot the third toe. This group includes horses, tapirs and rhinos.
There is evidence to show that, among the ungulata, horses share a more recent common ancestor with tapirs and rhinos. For one, the odd-toed ungulates all have an extended caecum (an outpocketing of the large intestine that is found in greatly reduced form in humans) that helps ferment and digest the cellulose in grass. They also share striking similarities in the anatomy of the teeth and the ankle bones.
Equus is the only surviving genus of the family equidae, and it includes 3 species of asses, 3 species of zebra and the horse.
Hyracotherium to Equus
Hyracotherium is the earliest known fossil horse. This unassuming animal was about 20 centimeters high at the shoulder and was probably a browser, seeking out its fill amidst the leaf-shrubbery rather than out on a grassy plain, as modern horses do. It lived around 50 million years ago, just 15 million years shy of the extinction of the dinosaurs (the Eocene). It spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere and was, by most counts, an evolutionary success story. But it differs from the modern horse in a number of key respects:
1) The modern horse dwarfs the dog-sized Hyracotherium.
2) Hyracotherium has four toes, whereas the horse sports a single sturdy toe/hoof on each foot.
3) the low crowned teeth of Hyracotherium imply a diet of soft leaves. shoots, nuts and fruits. Modern horses, however, are adapted to high-fibre grasses
4) the brain (specifically the frontal cortex) of the modern horse is considerably larger than that of Hyracotherium. The horses hooves also change, they go from having two weight earring toes to three to four toes. Horses have an etended caecum they helps them ferment and digest cellulose in foods that they eat su has grass to happen digest better. The earliest know fossil of a horse is the Hyracotherium. It lived around 50 million years ago. This species spread throughout the northern Hemisphere and differs from the modern horse of today.
When the large horse appeared, the body size of Equids changed. After remaining the same for many years. Horse have a stomaceh with four chambers, just like the cow and goats. This helps them push a larger amount of material trough their digestive system. It's been shown that body size has an effect on the animal. Larger animals have an advantage over smaller animals. Larger animals are able to conserve energy better and have an increase I'm running speed. Why did horses get bigger?
Well, for starters, the fossil record does not tell us a story of uniform progression towards larger body size. For example, some of the distant descendants of Hyracotherium, like the Pliocene horse Nannipus, were even smaller than the earliest horses. The body size of Equids remained roughly constant for several million years before large horses appeared on the scene.
So what selective pressures might have led to an increase in body-size over time? The typical explanation has to do with large body size being a line of defense against predators on the open plains. It may also have to do with the shift in diet from high- quality forage to nutrient-poor high-fibre grass (which was roughly concurrent with the spread of open grasslands throughout the world).
In terms of energy derived per unit bulk, horses cannot process food as efficiently as even-toed ungulates that chew their cud and have a modified stomach with four chambers. The fermentation process that digests cellulose (with the aid of symbiotic bacteria) in the caecum of the horse is almost exactly mirrored in the proverbial four stomachs of cows and goats. While they cannot match even-toed ungulates for energy efficiency per unit mass, they can push a greater amount of material through their digestive system in a given amount of time. They are also specially adapted to subsisting on low-quality grasses which their even-toed counterparts could not survive on for long.
Larger animals are able to conserve energy better (on account of their greater ability to retain heat compared to smaller animasl) and this might have been driving force towards greater size. Body size may have also contributed to an increase in running speed.
Appearance: Although horses have been selectively bred for centuries by humans and their size and weight varies greatly from breed to breed, their general body pattern remains the same. The horse is a hoofed mammal with four long limbs and a barrel-shaped body. It has a long neck that supports a large, long head, and the eyes and ears are large. The tail is short but covered with long, coarse hairs that extend its length. Long hair also grows along the top ridge of the neck. These hairs can be many different colours, as can the horse's coat: brown, black, grey, spotted, or a combination of two different colours.
Specific Habitat: A horse can adapt to live in many different environments and climates. This is demonstrated by many breeds of horse living in the wild, which have evolved with special traits. However, in general, a horse needs shelter, food, and open space. Shelter could come in the form of a manmade building, or from something natural like a grove of trees or a cliff. Many horses live on large, flat plains, like the Russian steppes, or the North American prairies. Here there is shelter and space, as well as abundant food (grass) Equus caballus. 2006 horses1
Adaptations to Environment:
The horses survival mechanism is to identify danger and flee from it, rather than fight although a cornered horse will sometimes fight to defend a foal. The horses long neck enables it to eat short grasses without lying down and also to raise its head high to improve its range of vision as it looks for danger. Its eyes are set in the sides of the head for increased all-around vision. Horses have large nostrils to smell danger, large ears to hear everything around it, and large eyes that detect movement very well. Horses have an amazing skill that allows them to adapt to live in many different environment and climates. This allows them to live in different parts of the world and be socially adapted to each place. The horse body was put together to aid them in their ability to survive in the wild. They have large nostrils to smell danger, large eyes to detect every movement, and have large ears to hear everything around them. Although horses have gone under a large amount of changes, the general pattern of the body has remained the same.
I can connect to this because I know what it's like first hand looking for a specific horse and what suits their interests. People look for horse that have a good bloodlines. When I was looking for a horse, I was specifically looking for a horse that was skilled in jumping. Unlike looking for a horse with racing blood in them. History of the Horse:
Since horses can live in many diverse environments, they have all evolved in many different ways. The earliest ancestor of the modern horse (Hyracotherium), which lived around 60 million years ago, was a small animal with paws, which browsed and ate shrubs and leaves growing low to the ground. Hyracotherium had four toes on its front paws, and three on its back. Due to climatic changes, the vegetation changed as well, and so the soft foliage became much tougher, and plants began to grow taller. So, their teeth changed to be molars more suited to the tougher pants. Thus emerged Mesohippus, which was taller and had a longer neck, and also teeth more suitable for both tougher plants, and grazing. Also, the number of toes on each foot had decreased to three. Around 23 million years ago, Mesohippus became Parahippus, which had much longer legs, and teeth adapted to grinding and chewing grass. Then, 17 million years ago, Merychippus, the first animal recognizable as a horse, evolved. These early horses had become adapted to running, and also had their weight carried only on their middle toes. Thus, the two other toes began to recede, and the middle toe became what we see today as the hoof. Eventually, around 4 million years ago, Equus evolved. Now there are hundreds of different breeds of Equus all over the world, each one slightly different. Many of these have been through the process of artificial selection by humans, and have been bred to perform specific tasks, such as pull heavy loads, jump high obstacles, or gallop exceedingly fast. However, other natural changes have occurred within the different breeds, such as growing a thicker coat during cold seasons, or having tougher hooves than usual for rocky terrain. However, for the general habitat of a flat grassy plain, the horse has evolved over millions of years by elongating its legs, altering its molars, and developing hooves. Equus caballus. 2006 horses1 Reproductive Characteristics: The horse reproduces sexually. Because the horse avoids danger by running, every aspect of its reproductive cycle happens quickly. Horses usually breed during late spring, summer, and early fall to ensure that the foal is born during spring, when the weather is warming and the grass is plentiful. Mares (mature female horses) carry their foals for 11 months. The mating process happens very quickly, as does the birth. Mares like to find a marshy, hidden area in which to give birth, presumably to hide from predators. Foals are born fully developed, can stand within 15-25 minutes of birth and can run with the herd when they are one day old. This ensures that the foal will not be vulnerable to predators a horse that could not run would be at a great risk of being killed. Also, the mare feeds her foal with milk from her own body. In order for the horse to have the ability to run and do it well, it had to adapt and have their weight carried only on their middle toes. Horses now a days go through the process of artificial selection by humans. They pick out what skills the horse have and what they are built form from jumping to racing they all have a purpose and a set area in which they will succeed in. Horses started out Asa. Small animal with paws. It was much smaller then the modern horse. Due to climate changes their vegetation also changed over time. It went from soft foliage to thought food such as grasses.
Phylogenetic Tree Classification:
Equus. (Other members of this group are: Zebras, Asses, Donkeys, and Onagers. Horses are also closely related to Tapirs and Rhinoceroses.) The horse is a mammal, and a vertebrate. Under the phylogenetic tree, which classifies life according to its evolutionary history, the horse is included in the Animals branch of the Eukarya domain. Equus caballus. 2006 horses1horses1 Importance to Ecosystem: The horse is a herbivore. Thus, it serves as a consumer of plants, keeping plant populations in check, and sometimes competing with other grazers such as deer and domestic cattle. In the wild, horses are prey to whatever large carnivore inhabits their region usually wolves or large cats. In cases where a horse cannot run from danger, it will try to defend itself by kicking out with its hooves or biting. Status:
Though the rise of machinery has meant less work for the horse now than in the past, it is still kept worldwide - as a working or transportation animal in places where horses are more practical to use than machines, or as a recreation animal for things like sport and entertainment. The wild or feral horse is much less common all animals living in the wild now are feral, semi-feral, or have been reintroduced to the area in which they live. Breeds such as the Exmoor pony of Great Britain run free but are carefully monitored and kept free from the influence of other breeds in an effort to preserve the breeds characteristics. Much effort is being made to safeguard areas where horses roam free, and to keep the horse from disappearing altogether in the wild. Fortunately, horses are still widely ridden and raised for pleasure purposes, and so the domestic horse, at least, is not in danger of becoming endangered any time soon.
Learning Summary:
The domestic horse has been used by humans for food, recreation, and work for thousands of years, and is still used today. It is one of the only species whose evolution has been strongly influenced by humans for hundreds of years. Thus, it is interesting, because modern horses still have instincts, characteristics, and behaviours that have been passed down from their wild ancestors. Through this treehouse, we hope we have been able to enlighten you about the more 'scientific' side of the glorious animal which is the horse. The horse is the only species thats evolution has been changed and strongly influenced by humans. It is interesting and shocking that the modern horses still have characteristics of horse from their anteaters because of how much it's been changed. Because of the changing of each year and the more machinery and technology, the use of the horse has changed. They are no longer used for pulling wagons through town, and very rarely used for working (unless on the farm)