this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Wait what's the deal with the horses? I want to feel good about myself today.
Edit: Wow, those bastards have it rough.
Their genetics have sacrificed nearly every aspect of basic resiliency for maximum speed on the plains. Most of the work caring for horses is keeping them from accidentally killing themselves. Full disclosure: I worked as a stable hand as a child in exchange for riding lessons. Will never ever own a horse.
Same for rabbits. The are basically as much lean muscle that can fit on the lighest possible skeleton.
If you pick up a rabbit wrong, they can snap their own back with the momentum from kicking their back legs.
What preditor was so fast horses had to evolve to that extent??
Big cat. You're aware of the cheetah? Just picture that but not in Africa
You know what really caught me up: where are horses native to?
There are wild horses on the Mongolian steppes.
All other horses are domesticated. Even the free horses in USA and Australia are descendants of domesticated horses.
You're right! But also, horses were native to North America but they went extinct 10,000 years ago and weren't introduced until much more recently.
Don’t tell that to a Mormon
PBS Eons has a couple good videos on both horse evolution and domestication.
It’s just a damn good series in general as well
Us. They basically tried to beat pursuit predation by outrunning the distance humans will be willing to track over.
It did not work, they went extinct in North America because of how much it did not work.
Large predatory flightless birds probably didn't help either.
Ah, sweet home Caelid
"What are those? I know predatory and flightless birds, but both?"
I have looked it up before posting, I learned something new today.
They are known as terror birds. Think of a ten foot tall ostrich with a flesh tearing beak like an eagle.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae
Saber toothed tigers and shit
Saber toothed shit is a serious reason
Human. Not for food, but because they always choose to breed on the Porcshe over the Toyota Hilux for racing.
The wording here makes it sound like we hunted horses for the specific purpose of having sex on them, and honestly, I'd probably be running as fast as a car if that kept happening to me too!
Basically a 900LB Cocker Spaniel that's afraid of it's own farts and will eventually kill every single tree within reach. I also will never own horses.
I did this too and will also never own a horse lmao. This is why horse people are weird.
Some people love caring for fragile things. Boosts their self-esteem. It can also break them when they fail.
*one reason
Sometimes they will die because they can’t puke. Also broken legs are usually fatal even with vet care.
To add on why broken legs are fatal: its because horses are so big, that even with a sling, they cannot support themselves well on 3 legs. And lying down is also not an option as their own weight will crush their internal organs if they stay down for too long.
I thought horses not being able to lie down for long was just competition horses! It's all of them?
Also their blood gets pumped through their hooves, and to much weight on one hoof can impede blood flow through their body.
Oh, wow, I had always thought that shooting a horse with a broken leg was an act of brutal expedience, not mercy.
It's sad, but it's common medical practice in modern horse hospitals:
Also, don't they need to run to move food through their digestive tract? Or to force themselves to cough if they have something stuck in their lungs? I think there is some sort of dependency of basic functions that relies on the movement of their lungs/stomach going back and forth while running that they can't easily do if they just stand in one place all day
The term healthy as a horse is mostly survivorship bias
From what i read here there's no unhealthy horse, it's either healthy or dead.
"So, Timmy, do you want to be healthy as a horse?"
They only have 4 toes total.
Humans have multiple toes because our ape ancestors used their toes like fingers. Having multiple, separate toes is probably bad for survival unless you're using toes to manipulate tools.
Animals that have distinct toes include apes, geckos, mice, raccoons and similar animals which need them to grip onto surfaces or to manipulate things. There are predators which have separate toes because they're a place to mount claws: eagles, cats, etc. There are animals that have separate toes with webbing between for swimming. But, for a lot of animals, separate toes aren't really useful, so they've evolved away: elephants, rhinos, giraffes, horses, cows, etc.
Tbh if I could I think I would turn on the gene for prehensile feet.
Just to try. Looks fun.
Yeah, but at least most of those still have multiple toes to spread the weight around. Horses decided to get rid of that completely.
Spreading the weight around using toes doesn't seem to be a useful strategy. It's also not something that humans do. Human toes are not at the weight-bearing part of the foot. And, while I'm sure toes are somewhat involved in agility, having individual toes doesn't seem to be. In fact, if you look at apes like gorillas and chimps, it's pretty clear that our toes have been getting shorter and less important as we've been evolving as upright-walking creatures who don't live in trees. Instead, the sole of the foot, which used to be much more like the palm of a hand, has been getting longer and sturdier.
If you have separate toes, you have multiple fragile things that can break or be torn off. If you have one mega-toe it's going to be sturdy. That's probably why the heaviest animals have the fewest / smallest toes.
And they run around at 60mph on the tips of their toenails.
I mean, humans run around on something that birds would consider knees, and stupidly try to support their entire body weight using only half their legs.