Horses cover one of the most interesting groups of mammals since the question of the origin of mammals has been posed. Almost all students are familiar with the story of the “evolution” of the horse, which begins with Hyracotherium (Eohippus), a “horse” the size of a dog with four toes on the front legs, which goes through a linear evolution through three-toed varieties, and ends with the modern single-toed Equus. But while signing on to the evolution of horses in general, Birdsell states that: “Much of this story is inaccurate…”1 Others have the same views. George Gaylord Simpson, for example, stated that several generations of students were misinformed about the true meaning of the evolution of the horse.2 These authors believe that the evolution of the horse is more complex than is usually presented, and the sequence is more in the shape of a bush than a tree.
To us, the family tree of the horse looks simply like one scenario composed of non-equivalent parts. Nowhere, for example, are there transitional forms that document the transition from a non-horse ancestor (allegedly Condylartha) with five toes on each foot to Hyracotherium with four toes on the front and three toes on the back foot. There are no transitional forms between the four-toed Hyracotherium and the three-toed Miohippus, nor between the latter, which has milk teeth, and the three-toed Merychippus, equipped with high-crowned teeth for grazing. Finally, single-toed grazers, like Equus, appear suddenly, without intermediaries showing gradual evolution from the three-toed ones.
So, Birdsell tells us this story in the following way (note that when an evolutionist uses terms like “sudden,” “abrupt,” or “rapid,” speaking about transitions, they usually imply that no transitional forms have been found):
“The evolution of the mechanisms of the foot occurred through rapid and abrupt changes before those gradual ones. The transition from the foot form shown in the miniature Eohippus to the larger, consistent three-toed Miohippus was so abrupt that it didn’t even leave a record in fossil remains… their foot structure changed very rapidly into a three-toed foot, in which the cushion disappeared, and the two side toes became essentially nonfunctional. Finally, in the Pliocene, the line leading to the modern single-toed grazer goes through a rapid loss of two side toes on each foot.”
He then continues by saying that this evolution was not gradual but occurred in rapid jumps. So, the continuity sought by this theory cannot be documented from the fossil record.
Simply, the surprising and revealing fact was discovered when we compared North American with South American ungulates. We are all familiar with a series (these are the hind legs): a) Eohippus, b) Merychippus, with reduced side toes, and c) modern Equus.
If we look at the hind legs of South American ungulates (Order Litopterna): a) Macrauchenia, b) Diadiaphorus, and c) Thoatherium, we again see a three-toed ungulate (Macrauchenia), a three-toed ungulate with reduced side toes (Diadiaphorus), and, in this case, a single-toed ungulate (Thoatherium), which, according to Romer, resembles a horse more than any true horse, as it was single-toed with more reduced outgrowths than in modern equids.
Don’t they thus enable another beautiful evolutionary sequence? No, certainly not, because they do not appear at all in this sequence. Diadiaphorus, a three-toed ungulate with reduced lateral toes, and Thoatherium, a one-toed ungulate, were contemporaries in the Miocene epoch. Macrauchenia, with a hind leg that contained three fully developed toes, was not found until the Pliocene epoch, which follows after the Miocene according to the geological column. In fact, it is said that the one-toed Thoatherium disappeared in the Miocene before the three-toed Macrauchenia, which appeared in the Pliocene.
Thus, if evolutionists allowed themselves to be guided by fossil evidence and their usual assumptions regarding geological time, they would have to assume that in South America, one one-toed hoofed animal gave rise to a three-toed hoofed animal with reduced lateral toes, which in turn gave rise to a hoofed animal with three fully developed toes. This is exactly the opposite of the assumed sequence of events occurring with North American horses. We do not know any evolutionist who suggests such a sequence of events, but why not? Perhaps because the sequence from three-toed to one-toed North American horse has become so popularized in evolutionary circles that no one dares to suggest the reverse transition. Of course, there is no more evidence in South America than there is in North America.
It should also be noted that in the Rattlesnake Formation of the John Day County in northeastern Oregon, the three-toed Neohipparion was found next to the one-toed Pliohippus horse. Transitional forms were absent. In other cases, “primitive” species of one genus, like those of the genus Merychippus, were found in geological formations supposedly younger than those containing “advanced” species.
Was Hyracotherium (Eohippus) really a horse? Hyracotherium was found in Europe before “Eohippus” was discovered in North America, and it was given the genus name Hyracotherium by the famous British anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen, who was also its discoverer. Later, other specimens were found in North America and were given the genus name Eohippus. It was later concluded that the North American specimens were actually the same genus as Hyracotherium. The latter has priority, so Eohippus is not an appropriate name for these creatures. It is most commonly used undoubtedly because the name Eohippus means “early horse,” while Owen chose the name Hyracotherium because of the resemblance of this creature to the creatures of the genus Hyrax (hares, rock hyraxes).”
This is the full word-for-word translation, maintaining the original structure. Let me know if you’d like to clarify anything further!
Although Hyracotherium or Eohippus, was not similar to modern horses, either morphologically or physically, this creature was chosen to stand on the horse pedestal by the American paleontologist Marsh and others, and this scheme became firmly accepted both in the public and in scientific circles after the lecture of Thomas H. Huxley in New York City, and the publication of Marsh’s studies.7
Nilsson pointed out, that although Hyracotherium had little or no similarity with the horse, it was clearly morphologically and physically similar to living creatures of the genus Hyrax.8 Hyrax, like Hyracotherium, has four toes on the front and three on the back legs. The cheek teeth of these two creatures have many similarities and are more similar to those of a rhinoceros than a horse. The body structure and lifestyle of Hyrax are also similar to those attributed to the genus Hyracotherium. Thus, Nilsson confirms that although Hyracotherium does not resemble modern horses in any way, they were, evidently, significantly similar to today’s Hyrax.
Others also doubt that Hyracotherium had any relation to the modern horse. For example, Kerkut observes:
“Firstly, it is unclear that Hyracotherium was a precursor of the horse. Thus, Simpson (1945) argues: ‘Matthew showed and insisted that Hyracotherium (including Eohippus) was so primitive that it was not much more equid-like than tapirids, rhinocerotids, etc., but it is commonly placed at the root of the equid group.'”9
In other words, Hyracotherium is no more similar to a horse than a tapir or rhinoceros, and it could just as reasonably have been chosen as a precursor to a rhinoceros or tapir. Therefore, it seems that the objectivity of their inclusion in the construction of the phylogenetic tree was questionable from the very beginning, and that the ‘horse’ on which the entire family tree of horses is based was not at all a horse. Since the publication of Kerkut’s book, there have been no works regarding horses that materially affected his conclusion that:
“In some cases, it seems that the pattern of horse evolution could be just as chaotic as the one proposed by Osborn (1937, 1943) for the evolution of Proboscidea, where ‘in no instance is there any known form chosen to be the descendant of any later known form; for each grouping into suborders, it is assumed to have originated completely separately and usually without any transitional forms from the presumed ancestors in the early Eocene or late Cretaceous.'” (Romer, 1949)9
Finally, let us mention that the number of ribs in these creatures is contradictory to what evolution suggests.
If the “evolution of the horse” is really so chaotic and patched up, this classic proof for evolution is without any real value. The real proof, on the other hand, fits exactly into the creationism model.
- Literature
- Ref 1. A. S. Romer, Vertebrate Paleontology, 3rd ed., U. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966.
- J. B. Birdsell, Human Evolution, Rand McNally College Pub. Co., 1975, p. 169.
- G. G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution, Columbia University Press, New York, 1953, p. 259.
- Birdsell, Ref. 15, p. 170.
- Romer, Ref. 1, p. 260-261.
- S. Nevins, Creation Res. Soc. Quart. 10:196 (1974).
- J. T. Gregory, U. Cal. Pub. Geol. Sci. 26:428 (1942).
- F. W. Cousins, Creation Res. Soc. Quart. 7:102 (1971).
- H. Nilsson, Synthetische Artbuilding, Verlag CWE Gleenrup, Lund, Sweden, 1954 (see Cousins, Ref. 21, for a summary of Nilsson’s section on the horse).
- G. A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, Pergamon Press, New York, 1960, p. 149.