Evolution of horses
Horses originated in North America where they also evolved into a variety of different species of horses. Asia is thought to be the first place to have domesticated horses.
Eohippus Horses evolved from a small, fox-size creature named the Eohippus. The Eohippus looked like a miniature horse without hooves. It lived around 52 million years ago and thrived for 20 million years with few significant change. The most significant change was its teeth which evolved because of a change in there diet from fruits and foliage to focus increasingly on browsing food. |  |
 | Orohippus The Orohippus (moutain-horse) lived approximatley 50 million years ago. Although Orohippus means mountain horse, Orohippus did not live in mountains. The Orohippus had approximatley the same size as the Eohippus but had longer hind legs which indicates that he could jump very high and far. The teeth evolved to grind food better which is an indication that Orohippus ate tougher plant materials. |
Epihippus The Epihippus lived around 47 million years ago. The Epihippus has no drastic differences with the Orohippus. The most significant change is in the teeth, which continued to evolve to eat more efficiently plant materials. |  |
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Mesohippus The Mesohippus (middle-horse) lived around 40 million years ago. The Climat in which the Mesohippus lived became drier giving place to prairies, in response to the change in his environment, the Mesohippus grew stronger legs to run faster in open areas were it was an easy prey. |
Miohippus The Miohippus (lesser-horse) lived around 36 million years ago. Miohippus was significantly larger than its predecessors, its ankle joints subtly changed. It also began to show a variable extra crest in its upper cheek teeth. |  |
 | Miohippus to modern horse Parahippus The Miohippus evolved into the Parahippus who was the size of a pony and had facial features resembling the ones of the modern horse. Most of its body weight was on its center toe which is starting to resemble a hoof (Left). Merychippus The grazer Merychippus had wider molars then its predecessors. It also gave birth to, at least 19 grassland species. Dinohippus The Dinohippus (terrible-horse) appeared around 10.3 to 3.6 million years ago. Plesippus The Plesippus lived around 3.5 million years ago and resembled an arabian horse. At the end of the Pliocene periode the climat in North America began to cool significantly, this cause large numbers of Plesippus to cross the Bering land bridge and populate Eurasia and the rest of the planet. |
After the migration of the plesippus, horses evolved to become the horses that we know today.
