Equine Research Papers

Have you ever looked at a horse and wonder how we got to the modern horse we have today? Imagine a world where there were horses of all colors, sizes, shapes were roaming the earth, but was no bigger than a size of a dog. Today’s horses only represent a fraction of the horse family tree, known as Equine. All the other branches of horses called Equidae are now extinct. The Equid family appeared 55 million years ago, in North America, which branched off into different genera such as grazers, left browsers, and mixed feeders. Today the Equid family is only represented by Equus genus, that is composed of seven to nine species, including zebras, asses, donkeys, and horses. These species are also in the order Perissodactyla, or odd-toed animal. Tracking the line of descent from Hyracotherium to Equus reveals several evident patterns: degradation of toe number, increase increment of molar teeth, extending of the face, and growth in body size; but these patterns are not found in all the horse lines. The earliest horses belonged to Hyracotherium, but the earliest
Teeth on grazing horses had roots that were open and allowed many blood vessels to enter, which supply the teeth with lots of nutrients, this allowed the teeth to keep growing during the whole existence of the horse3. This development allowed for a great diversity in the horse family, which included species of Miohippus. After the Miohippus there were the Merychippus, that were found in North America about 17 million years ago, their long legs made it possible for them to travel long distances2. Relating skeletal development incorporates a stretching of the facial bones and a developing of the lower jaw. Equinae lost their footpads and late Equinae individuals show the single toe attributes of present day