By Giorgia GuglielmiAug.
22, 2017 , 7:01 PM
How horses—whose ancestors were
dog-sized animals with three or four toes—ended up with a single hoof has
long been a matter of debate among scientists. Now, a new study suggests that
as horses became larger, one big toe provided more resistance to bone stress
than many smaller toes. To trace the evolution of the horse toe, researchers
first examined 13 fossilized horse leg bones, from those of the
50-million-year-old, dog-sized Hyracotherium (which had three toes on
its hind feet and four on its forefeet) to those of modern horses. They
measured features like bone length and area using 3D scanning, which revealed
the bones’ resistance to stresses such as squeezing or bending.
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