Answer:
Explanation:
The evolutionary lineage of the horse is among the best-documented in all paleontology. The history of the horse family, Equidae, began during the Eocene Epoch, which lasted from about 56 million to 33.9 million years ago. During the early Eocene there appeared the first ancestral horse, a hoofed, browsing mammal designated correctly as Hyracotherium but more commonly called Eohippus, the “dawn horse.” Fossils of Eohippus, which have been found in both North America and Europe, show an animal that stood 4.2 to 5 hands (about 42.7 to 50.8 cm, or 16.8 to 20 inches) high, diminutive by comparison with the modern horse, and had an arched back and raised hindquarters. The legs ended in padded feet with four functional hooves on each of the forefeet and three on each of the hind feet—quite unlike the unpadded, single-hoofed foot of modern equines. The skull lacked the large, flexible muzzle of the modern horse, and the size and shape of the cranium indicate that the brain was far smaller and less complex than that of today’s horse. The teeth, too, differed significantly from those of the modern equines, being adapted to a fairly general browser’s diet. Eohippus was, in fact, so unhorselike that its evolutionary relationship to the modern equines was at first unsuspected. It was not until paleontologists had unearthed fossils of later extinct horses that the link to Eohippus became clear.
