Fossil Records of Horses incorrect

According to new genetic information on horses the fossil records happen to be incorrect. The Fossil record indicates that 11,000 years ago there were some 50 subspecies of horses in North America, however new mitochondrial evidence indicates only two.

"It looks like, as far as we can tell from the DNA, there is only evidence of two species in North America," Dr Alan Cooper from the University of Adelaide, Australia, told the BBC News website.

"We think that, in fact, people have been looking at these fossils and over-interpreting signs of changes in shape and size," he added.

"Probably these animals are adapting to local environments and perhaps they are [anatomically] more [changeable] than the palaeontologists had perhaps thought."

Link

Fascinating

That's no big deal. There are still 7 confirmed species of horse at the moment - 3 zebra, 3 "wild a-ss," and 1 species of domestic/wild (Przewalski)/semi-wild (descendents of domesticated) horse. Horses are estimated to have existed in some form for 50 million years.

Zip

[edit on 7/5/2005 by Zipdot]

Yes, there are currently 7 Confirmed species of horses. Yes, horses have existed in one form or another for 50 million years. However, the big deal is that the fossil record on horses has been proven to be incorrect by Genetic information. It appears scientists have found new species when in actuality they did not exist.

I should rephrase that - I don't mean to say this is "no big deal." I am surprised by the claim that there were 50 species of horse in N. America in the past 10,000 years. 6 million years ago, there were more than 6 genera of horse, producing many species, but biology textbooks only list the current 7 (edit: species of equus) up to 10,000 years ago, as far as I know.

Horses have been a very important subject for evolution because they represent a classic example of evolution in action.[1] I thought I had a good grasp on horse knowledge, but I have never heard this "50" claim, so, the message I meant to convey is that I am more suprised by the claim that there were 50 species in N. America during the past 10,000 years than the claim that there were not.

But new DNA analysis suggests that there were only really three or four species and they evolved rather recently from a common American ancestor, said Jaco Weinstock of the University of Oxford.

[2]

Hmm, the pleistocene period is from 2.5 - 0.01 million years ago...

[1] www.talkorigins.org...
[2] dsc.discovery.com...

Zip

[edit on 7/5/2005 by Zipdot]

Interesting article, Black Jackal.

Makes me think of Stephen J. Gould's example using horses of an evolutionary tree, demonstrating what he considered to be a successful species, in contrast with humans. He illustrated the evolutionary history of horses to be a bush with many branches, whereas the evolution of humans could more accurately be depicted as a ladder due to its lack of b ranching/diversity.

It calls that in to question - but his point regarding evolutionary success still stands.

This is unusual, good find. Normally, morphological estimates of species end up agreeing with the later genetic information. This is really interesting, I'm going to take more of a look at this.

edit to add:
Looks like this is the original paper and a newsy article on it from plos also.
Evolution, Systematics, and Phylogeography of Pleistocene Horses in the New World: A Molecular Perspective
New World Pleistocene Horses: Pruning the Equid Tree



[edit on 5-7-2005 by Nygdan]

That does NOT demonstrate the fossil records to be incorrect, it demonstrates that it may have been misinterpreted. That changes in size and shape have been interpreted as to be different subspecies while from the mitochondrial DNA record it seems not called for. I also doubt that he proved anything conclusively as mitochondrial DNA is just the DNA for the mitochondriae, the energy factories of cells, not of the entire animal.

It doesn't really matter that it was mtDNA. The techniques used don't have to be 'from the whole animal' to determine how many speciation events and how long ago the last common ancestors were and such.

Hello all,

Why is there such a cover-up involving the horse? Exposing the Columbus Myth by following the horse

The article posted above said The DNA analysis indicates Hippidion probably evolved somewhere in Central America only 3 million years ago .. just about the time a volcanic land bridge connected the two continents

Now how do suppose Discovery and [Larry O'Hanlon, of Discovery News] knew that Central America got here 3 million years ago? Are they smart or what?

Nuff to gag a maggot actually!

bc
.

Originally posted by beforebc
Hello all,

Why is there such a cover-up involving the horse? Exposing the Columbus Myth by following the horse

As pointed out in that and the other threads where you've trotted this out (get it, trot, huh huh, clever eh!) the horses in question are not pre-columbian, they're from the 1600's, long after the spandish and others had gotten into the regions invovled. The horses are radiocarbon dated to be from about 40 years before the spanish were in that precinct, but that's really not saying much. Its saying even more to pretend that a single horse and a donkey are all that remains in the fossil record of a vast transcontinental population of horses and donkeys.