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The horse belongs to the order Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), the members of which all share hooved feet and an odd number of toes on each foot, as well as mobile upper lips and a similar tooth structure. This means that horses share a common ancestry with tapirs and rhinoceroses.
Equid hooves are the result of the 55-million-year evolution of the horse. The ancestral horse, Eohippus, is characterized by four toes on the hindfeet and three toes on the forefeet. [3] Wild and domesticated Equus species share a very similar hoof shape and function. The present-day conformation of the hoof is a result of a progressive ...
Merychippus is an extinct proto-horse of the family Equidae that was endemic to North America during the Miocene, 15.97–5.33 million years ago. [2] It had three toes on each foot and is the first horse known to have grazed.
The critical importance of the feet and legs is summed up by the traditional adage, "no foot, no horse". [62] The horse hoof begins with the distal phalanges , the equivalent of the human fingertip or tip of the toe, surrounded by cartilage and other specialized, blood-rich soft tissues such as the laminae .
Equidae (commonly known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. The family evolved more than 50 million years ago, in the Eocene epoch, from a small, multi-toed ungulate into larger, single-toed animals.
Artiodactyls are even-toed ungulates, species whose feet have an even number of digits; the ruminants with two digits are the most numerous, e.g. giraffe, deer, bison, cattle, goats, gazelles, pigs, and sheep. [2] The feet of perissodactyl mammals have an odd number of toes, e.g. the horse, the rhinoceros, and the tapir. [3]
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Section of a horse foot. The horse's foot is in an unguligrade orientation. The columnar orientation of bones and connective tissue is similarly well-aligned to transmit loads during the weight-bearing phase of locomotion. The thick keratinized and semicircular hoof changes shape during loading and unloading. Similarly, the cushioned frog ...