Examining Evolutionary Trends in Equus and its Close Relatives from Five Continents

📖 The Scoop

 Evolution of the horse has been an often-cited primary example of evolution, as

well as one of the classic and important stories in paleontology for over a century

and a half, due to their rich fossil record across 5 continents: North America, South

America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The recent horse has served a profound role in

human ancestry, including agriculture, commerce, sport, transport, warfare, and in

prehistory, for the subsistence of humans. Many studies have examined the evolution

of the Equidae and chronicled the striking changes in skulls, dentition, limbs, and

body size which have long been perceived to be a response to environmental shifts

through time. Most comprehensive studies heretofore have: (1) focused on the

“Great Transformation”- changes that occurred in the early Miocene, (2) involved

tracking long-term diversity or paleoecological trends on a single continent or within

a geographical locality, or (3) concentrated on the 3-toed hipparions.

The Plio–Pleistocene evolutionary stage of horse evolution is punctuated by the

great climatic fluctuations of the Quaternary beginning 2.6 Ma which influenced

Equus evolution, biogeographic dispersion and adaptation on a nearly global scale.

The evolutionary biology of Equus evolution across its entire range remains relatively

poorly understood and often highly controversial. Some of this lack of understanding

is due to assumptions that have arisen because of the relatively derived craniodental

and postcranial anatomy of Equus and its close relatives which has seemed to imply

that that these forms occupied relatively homogenous and narrow dietary and

locomotor niches - notions that have not been adequately addressed and rigorously

tested. Other challenges have revolved around teasing apart environmentally-driven

adaptation versus phylogenetically defined morphological change. Geochronologic

age control of localities, geographic provinces and continents has improved, but

in no way is absolute and can be reexamined in our proposed volume. Temporal

resolution for paleodietary, paleohabitat and paleoecological interpretations are

also challenging for understanding the evolution of Equus. Our proposed volume

attempts to assemble a group of experts who will address multiple dimensions of

Equus’ evolution in time and space.

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