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Evolution of the horse - part 4

Equus

The genus Equus, which includes all extant equines, is believed to have evolved from Dinohippus, via the intermediate form Plesippus. One of the oldest species is Equus simplicidens, described as zebra-like with a donkey-shaped head. The oldest fossil to date is ~3.5 million years old from Idaho, USA. The genus appears to have spread quickly into the Old World, with the similarly aged Equus livenzovensis documented from western Europe and Russia.

Molecular phylogenies indicate the most recent common ancestor of all modern equids (members of the genus Equus) lived ~5.6 (3.9–7.8) mya. Direct paleogenomic sequencing of a 700,000-year-old middle Pleistocene horse metapodial bone from Canada implies a more recent 4.07 Myr before present date for the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) within the range of 4.0 to 4.5 Myr BP. The oldest divergencies are the Asian hemiones (subgenus E. (Asinus), including the kulan, onager, and kiang), followed by the African zebras (subgenera E. (Dolichohippus), and E. (Hippotigris)). All other modern forms including the domesticated horse (and many fossil Pliocene and Pleistocene forms) belong to the subgenus E. (Equus) which diverged ~4.8 (3.2–6.5) million years ago.

Pleistocene horse fossils have been assigned to a multitude of species, with over 50 species of equines described from the Pleistocene of North America alone, although the taxonomic validity of most of these has been called into question. Recent genetic work on fossils has found evidence for only three genetically divergent equid lineages in Pleistocene North and South America. These results suggest all North American fossils of caballine-type horses (which also include the domesticated horse and Przewalski's horse of Europe and Asia), as well as South American fossils traditionally placed in the subgenus E. (Amerhippus) belong to the same species: E. ferus. Remains attributed to a variety of species and lumped as New World stilt-legged horses (including H. francisci, E. tau, E. quinni and potentially North American Pleistocene fossils previously attributed to E. cf. hemiones, and E. (Asinus) cf. kiang) probably all belong to a second species endemic to North America, which despite a superficial resemblance to species in the subgenus E. (Asinus) (and hence occasionally referred to as North American ass) is closely related to E. ferus. Surprisingly, the third species, endemic to South America and traditionally referred to as Hippidion, originally believed to be descended from Pliohippus, was shown to be a third species in the genus Equus, closely related to the New World stilt-legged horse. The temporal and regional variation in body size and morphological features within each lineage indicates extraordinary intraspecific plasticity. Such environment-driven adaptative changes would explain why the taxonomic diversity of Pleistocene equids has been overestimated on morphoanatomical grounds.

According to these results, it appears the genus Equus evolved from a Dinohippus-like ancestor ~4–7 mya. It rapidly spread into the Old World and there diversified into the various species of asses and zebras. A North American lineage of the subgenus E. (Equus) evolved into the New World stilt-legged horse (NWSLH). Subsequently, populations of this species entered South America as part of the Great American Interchange shortly after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, and evolved into the form currently referred to as Hippidion ~2.5 million years ago. Hippidion is thus only distantly related to the morphologically similar Pliohippus, which presumably became extinct during the Miocene. Both the NWSLH and Hippidium show adaptations to dry, barren ground, whereas the shortened legs of Hippidion may have been a response to sloped terrain. In contrast, the geographic origin of the closely related modern E. ferus is not resolved. However, genetic results on extant and fossil material of Pleistocene age indicate two clades, potentially subspecies, one of which had a holarctic distribution spanning from Europe through Asia and across North America and would become the founding stock of the modern domesticated horse. The other population appears to have been restricted to North America. However, one or more North American populations of E. ferus entered South America ~1.0–1.5 million years ago, leading to the forms currently known as E. (Amerhippus), which represent an extinct geographic variant or race of E. ferus.

Genome sequencing

Early sequencing studies of DNA revealed several genetic characteristics of Przewalski's horse that differ from what is seen in modern domestic horses, indicating neither is ancestor of the other, and supporting the status of Przewalski horses as a remnant wild population not derived from domestic horses. The evolutionary divergence of the two populations was estimated to have occurred about 45,000 YBP, while the archaeological record places the first horse domestication about 5,500 YBP by the ancient central-Asian Botai culture. The two lineages thus split well before domestication, probably due to climate, topography, or other environmental changes.

Several subsequent DNA studies produced partially contradictory results. A 2009 molecular analysis using ancient DNA recovered from archaeological sites placed Przewalski's horse in the middle of the domesticated horses, but a 2011 mitochondrial DNA analysis suggested that Przewalski's and modern domestic horses diverged some 160,000 years ago. An analysis based on whole genome sequencing and calibration with DNA from old horse bones gave a divergence date of 38–72 thousand years ago.

In June 2013, a group of researchers announced that they had sequenced the DNA of a 560–780 thousand year old horse, using material extracted from a leg bone found buried in permafrost in Canada's Yukon territory. Before this publication, the oldest nuclear genome that had been successfully sequenced was dated at 110–130 thousand years ago. For comparison, the researchers also sequenced the genomes of a 43,000-year-old Pleistocene horse, a Przewalski's horse, five modern horse breeds, and a donkey. Analysis of differences between these genomes indicated that the last common ancestor of modern horses, donkeys, and zebras existed 4 to 4.5 million years ago. The results also indicated that Przewalski's horse diverged from other modern types of horse about 43,000 years ago, and had never in its evolutionary history been domesticated.

A new analysis in 2018 involved genomic sequencing of ancient DNA from mid-fourth-millennium B.C.E. Botai domestic horses, as well as domestic horses from more recent archaeological sites, and comparison of these genomes with those of modern domestic and Przewalski's horses. The study revealed that Przewalski's horses not only belong to the same genetic lineage as those from the Botai culture, but were the feral descendants of these ancient domestic animals, rather than representing a surviving population of never-domesticated horses. The Botai horses were found to have made only negligible genetic contribution to any of the other ancient or modern domestic horses studied, which must then have arisen from an independent domestication involving a different wild horse population.

The karyotype of Przewalski's horse differs from that of the domestic horse by an extra chromosome pair because of the fission of domestic horse chromosome 5 to produce the Przewalski's horse chromosomes 23 and 24. In comparison, the chromosomal differences between domestic horses and zebras include numerous translocations, fusions, inversions and centromere repositioning. This gives Przewalski's horse the highest diploid chromosome number among all equine species. They can interbreed with the domestic horse and produce fertile offspring (65 chromosomes). /p>

Pleistocene extinctions

Digs in western Canada have unearthed clear evidence horses existed in North America until about 12,000 years ago. However, all Equidae in North America ultimately became extinct. The causes of this extinction (simultaneous with the extinctions of a variety of other American megafauna) have been a matter of debate. Given the suddenness of the event and because these mammals had been flourishing for millions of years previously, something quite unusual must have happened. The first main hypothesis attributes extinction to climate change. For example, in Alaska, beginning approximately 12,500 years ago, the grasses characteristic of a steppe ecosystem gave way to shrub tundra, which was covered with unpalatable plants. The other hypothesis suggests extinction was linked to overexploitation by newly arrived humans of naive prey that were not habituated to their hunting methods. The extinctions were roughly simultaneous with the end of the most recent glacial advance and the appearance of the big game-hunting Clovis culture. Several studies have indicated humans probably arrived in Alaska at the same time or shortly before the local extinction of horses. Additionally, it has been proposed that the steppe-tundra vegetation transition in Beringia may have been a consequence, rather than a cause, of the extinction of megafaunal grazers.

In Eurasia, horse fossils began occurring frequently again in archaeological sites in Kazakhstan and the southern Ukraine about 6,000 years ago. From then on, domesticated horses, as well as the knowledge of capturing, taming, and rearing horses, probably spread relatively quickly, with wild mares from several wild populations being incorporated en route.

Return to the Americas

Horses only returned to the Americas with Christopher Columbus in 1493. These were Iberian horses first brought to Hispaniola and later to Panama, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, and, in 1538, Florida. The first horses to return to the main continent were 16 specifically identified horses brought by Hernán Cortés. Subsequent explorers, such as Coronado and De Soto, brought ever-larger numbers, some from Spain and others from breeding establishments set up by the Spanish in the Caribbean. Later, as Spanish missions were founded on the mainland, horses would eventually be lost or stolen, and proliferated into large herds of feral horses that became known as mustangs.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas did not have a specific word for horses, and came to refer to them in various languages as a type of dog or deer (in one case, "elk-dog", in other cases "big dog" or "seven dogs", referring to the weight each animal could pull).

Read more at wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse

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