Horse evolution

[Jerry Smith]

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/fhc/Stratmap1.htm

This is a great link for a superficial view of the horse series. Click on the skulls, get a few details. Interesting to note that almost all of the fossils are found in North America and South America. Only Equus fossils are found all around the world, if this site is correct. Does this mean Equus flew or swam? Hardly. They probably crossed the same land bridge the American Indians crossed, only in the opposite direction. What continents are horse fossils entirely missing from? Australia & Antarctica... Why would they be missing from Australia?

What does this do to the objection from AIG that the fossil sequence is collected from all several different continents?

 

[RufusAtticus]

Note:

I guess this is a continuation of the discussion in this thread.

 

[Jerry Smith]

<bump>

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by Jerry Smith
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/fhc/Stratmap1.htm

This is a great link for a superficial view of the horse series. Click on the skulls, get a few details. Interesting to note that almost all of the fossils are found in North America and South America. Only Equus fossils are found all around the world, if this site is correct. Does this mean Equus flew or swam? Hardly. They probably crossed the same land bridge the American Indians crossed, only in the opposite direction. What continents are horse fossils entirely missing from? Australia & Antarctica... Why would they be missing from Australia?

What does this do to the objection from AIG that the fossil sequence is collected from all several different continents?

One might mention that The Talk.Origins Archive has a section on horses that is useful though there is certainly room for new FAQs.

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by ardipithecus


One might mention that The Talk.Origins Archive has a section on horses that is useful though there is certainly room for new FAQs.

Yes, they do indeed. Unfortunately the Archive causes a severe allergic reaction in some of the people on this particular board.

 

[LouisBooth]

http://www.carm.org/evo_questions/horsevolution.htm hmm?

 

[chickenman]

boy thats a lot of horse species to take on one ark

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
http://www.carm.org/evo_questions/horsevolution.htm hmm?

I only breezed through this article briefly, but encountered little there that was not already adequately explained in the T.O. FAQ. I started this thread to counter the claim that the horse fossils routinely jumped continents. Every fossil listed on the page that I posted was found in the Americas (almost all in the U.S., and most in the western U.S.), according to information from the page I posted.

The fact that several of the fossil horses can tentatively be grouped together into three or more genera, as this page indicates, is no objection at all. However, it is the reason that Eldridge (and others before him) "admitted" that the horse series display of the natural history museum in question was "inaccurate" and needed replaced - and the biggest of the "problems" and "debates" between evolutionary scientists and paleontologists about the horse series. The "problems" do not bear on whether the series shows clear evolution from Hyracotherium to modern Equus, but on the exact phylogenies of the member groups.

The only other curious point is that, according to their data, the "derived characteristic" of brain tissue folding was arrived at separately by cattle and horses from a common ancestor that lacked the trait. Admittedly, I do not know how common brain tissue folding is, nor how unlikely it is to emerge by convergent evolution, but I must express strong doubt that it represents a serious problem for horse evolution. I will inquire of someone more knowledgeable than I to see if I can find out - and if I can, I will post what I find back to here.

 

[chickenman]

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/pony3_1/pe31.htm


scroll down

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by chickenman
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/pony3_1/pe31.htm


scroll down

Chickenman, I'm thinking that you posted this because of these words from that source:

One of Len's most interesting papers was on the evolution of the brain of Hyracotherium ("eohippus") from the Eocene as well as the brains of later horses. He re-examined the specimens originally studied by Edinger (see Pony Express, Vol. 2, No. 4) and discovered that the brain endocast that she had used to interpret the complexity of Hyracotherium was probably not a horse at all (it apparently belonged to another primitive mammal of similar size living in the same community). Whereas Edinger concluded that Hyracotherium was little changed from its condylarth ancestor, Radinsky studied other definite specimens of Hyracotherium and discovered that the brain was significantly more complex and had the beginnings of complex foldings in the mid-brain like those of later horses.

This goes a good way toward answering that last confusing point I mentioned in my post, but I have already e-mailed someone very knowledgeable in the subject for more info, so I will see what they come back with.