Fossil Horses

I can't seem to finish a book before starting another one. I have a good but long geology book, Earth by Richard Fortey, still on the stack and with only one chapter to go but I keep jumping into new tomes. Right now I am stuck in a wonderful book translated from German on fossil horses. I had assumed that all early horses were North American but the book starts out describing an oil shale quarry in Mesel Germany loaded with Eocene horses.

I knew that horses lost their side toes, elongated and flattened their teeth, and grew much larger. What I did not know that they elongated their faces to accomodate their deep rooted teeth, also reduced the size of their ulnas and fibulae. What truly amazed me was that the early horses were super fast. George Gaylord Simpson estimated that they ran at Greyhound speeds.

I also learned that eventhough modern horses are a little faster than dogs, they specialized their tendons and ligaments into elastic afterburners that reduced the energy needed to move their toes and push off. In other words, the economized their locomotory energy.

I am eaten up with paleontology. I hope this interest sticks around for a while.