The evolution of horse

The diagram depicts the evolutional proceduce of horse which concentrate on thte
mutation of foot frame from 40 million years ago to present. At the first glance, thí
process consists of two proportions: the modification of appearance and foot frame.

As illustrated, on the left of graph, the appearance of horse changes through 4 stages: 40
million years ago, 30 million years ago, 15 million years ago and at moment. Initially,
horse turned up the first time about 40 million years ago with the name was Eohippus. It
looked very small and had no mane , short tail. Afterwards, Eohippus developed and
became Mesohippus which was very bigger and had a delicate of mane last from the top
of its head to the end of neck about 30 million years ago. The next period is about 15
million years ago. In which instead of mesohippus, Merychippus appeared. Its mane grew
more narrow and hair horse was longer than before. As the result of variation, horse is the
highest development in these process with increasing of body size. In short, going
through 4 stages, its appearance changed considerably and had the trend of expanding of
body shape on a large scale.

As can be demonstrated, the alteration of foot structure experiences 4 portions with 4

below periods in turn. In the first stage, Eohippus owned foots which had 4 long toes and
a spur. In each toe, there were 4 joints. However , the time of 15 million years after
enabled them to change in foot frame very much. Reducing of the number of toes,
Mesohipus had only 3 thoes in which the middle toe was the biggest and the number of
joint was persistent. Merychippus had the resemble pattern of foot with mesohippus but
the central toe which had 3 joints was longer and bulkier. In the final stage, Foot has 3
joints connect together and toes are superseded by hooves. Generally, intention of
development of foot of horse is lessening of toes and augmenting of size

In summary, passing periods, horse evolved and atained body imagine now. These
changes represent through development of body size and especially modifying of
structure of foot.

ĐÀO NGỌC ANH.