A 19th-Century perspective on horse evolution

    Drawings at left by O. C. Marsh, a prominent American paleontologist at Yale's Peabody Museum in the late1800's. The series presents equid evolution as a linear progression from Eohippus to modern Equus, and is intended to reinforce the concept of evolution as progressive and goal-oriented. The series in fact traces only one of many lineages, most of which have died out. The drawing at right is by Thomas Huxley, an early British proponent of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, who on visiting Marsh declared that "Eohippus must have an Eohomo". [Of course, early horses and early humans missed each by 50 Million Years].