evolution of the horse Essay -- essays papers

maturation of the caterFor many people, the buck family remains the classic representative of evolution. As more and more horse fossils have been found, virtually ideas about horseevolution have changed, but the horse family remains a good example ofevolution. In fact, we now have equal fossils of enough species in enoughgenera to examine details of evolutionary change.Evolution does not occur in a dead on target business enterprise toward a goal, like a ladder rather,evolution is like a branching bush, with no predetermined goal. caterspecies were constantly branching off the evolutionary tree and evolvingalong assorted unrelated routes. Theres no discernable straight line of horseevolution. Many horse species were usually present at the uniform time, withvarious numbers of toes, and adapted to various diets. In other words, horseevolution had no inherent direction. We only have the impression of straightline evolution because only star genus happens to still be a live, whichdeceives some people into thinking that the one genus was somehow thetarget of all the evolution. Instead, that one genus is merely the last survivingbranch of a once in good order and sprawling bush.Tracing a line of descent from Hyracotherium to genus Equus reveals severalapp arnt trends reduction of toe number, increase in size of cheek teeth,lengthening of the face, and increase in body size. But these trends are notseen in all of the horse lines. On the whole, horses got larger, bu...