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Updated: May 5, 2025
In its general characters, the skeleton of Anchitherium is very similar to that of the horse. In fact, Lartet and De Blainville called it Palæotherium equinum or hippoides; and De Christol, in 1847, said that it differed from Hipparion in little more than the characters of its teeth, and gave it the name of Hipparitherium.
When we consider these facts, and the further circumstance that the Hipparions, the remains of which have been collected in immense numbers, were subject, as M. Gaudry and others have pointed out, to a great range of variation, it appears to me impossible to resist the conclusion that the types of the Anchitherium, of the Hipparion, and of the ancient Horses constitute the lineage of the modern Horses, the Hipparion being the intermediate stage between the other two, and answering; to B in my former illustration.
Taylor's "distinguished legal friend," if a good lawyer, would not, in spite of his proficiency in circumstantial evidence, undertake to dispute with Professor Huxley about the relation of the anchitherium, hipparion, and horse; and if Dr. Taylor offered himself for examination on such a point he would be laughed out of court.
But it is more valuable than the European Hipparion for the reason that it is devoid of some of the peculiarities of that form peculiarities which tend to show that the European Hipparion is rather a member of a collateral branch, than a form in the direct line of succession. Next, in the backward order in time, is the Miohippus, which corresponds pretty nearly with the Anchitherium of Europe.
The Hipparion has large depressions on the face in front of the orbits, like those for the "larmiers" of many ruminants; but traces of these are to be seen in some of the fossil horses from the Sewalik Hills; and, as Leidy's recent researches show, they are preserved in Anchitherium.
It is undeniable, for example, that the evidence in favour of the derivation of the horse from the later tertiary Hipparion, and that of the Hipparion from Anchitherium, is as complete and cogent as such evidence can reasonably be expected to be; and the further investigations into the history of the tertiary mammalia are pushed, the greater is the accumulation of evidence having the same tendency.
Each foot possesses three complete toes; while the lateral toes are much larger in proportion to the middle toe than in Hipparion, and doubtless rested on the ground in ordinary locomotion. The ulna is complete and quite distinct from the radius, though firmly united with the latter. The fibula seems also to have been complete.
The reduction is less and the specialization is less in the Hipparion, and still less in the Anchitherium; but yet, as compared with other mammals, the reduction and specialization of parts in the Anchitherium remain great.
Each foot possesses three complete toes; while the lateral toes are much larger in proportion to the middle toe than in Hipparion, and doubtless rested on the ground in ordinary locomotion. The ulna is complete and quite distinct from the radius, though firmly united with the latter. The fibula seems also to have been complete.
The fibula appears to be in the same condition as in the horse. The teeth of the Hipparion are essentially similar to those of the horse, but the pattern of the grinders is in some respects a little more complex, and there is a depression on the face of the skull in front of the orbit, which is not seen in existing horses.
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