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The Horse (Equus caballus)
Officers patrolling the streets of Georgetown on horseback.
The horse (Equus caballus) is a hoofed mammal, and is one of eight living species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today.
In fact, humans began to domesticate horses around 4500 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. By 2000 BC the use of domesticated horses had spread worldwide.
Although most horses today are domesticated, there are still endangered populations some of the wild horse breeds.
Horses are anatomically designed to use speed to escape predators, and have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight instinct. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is, however, an unusual trait.
Another interesting fact about them is that they are able to sleep both standing up and lying down.
Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.
Horses and humans interact in many ways, not only in a wide variety of sport competitions and non-competitive recreational pursuits, but also in working activities including police work, agriculture, entertainment, assisted learning and therapy.
They were historically used in warfare and reports are that a wide variety of riding and driving techniques have been developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control.
Humans provide domesticated horses with food, water and shelter, as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians.
However, many products are derived from horses, including meat, milk, hide, hair, bone, and pharmaceuticals extracted from the urine of pregnant mares.
Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colours and distinctive markings, described with a specialized vocabulary. Often, a horse is classified first by its coat colour, before breed or sex.
It is said that a horse’s pregnancy lasts for approximately 335 to 340 days and usually results in one foal. Twins are very rare. And since horses are a precocial species, foals are capable of standing and running within a short time following birth, as was noted earlier.
Horses in general may sometimes be physically capable of reproduction at about 18 months. In practice, individuals are rarely allowed to breed before the age of three, especially females. Four years old are considered mature, although the skeleton normally continues to develop until the age of six; the precise time of completion of development also depends on the horse’s size, breed, gender, and the quality of care provided by its owner.
Also, if the horse is larger, its bones are larger; therefore, not only do the bones take longer to actually form bone tissue, but the epiphyseal plates are also larger and take longer to convert from cartilage to bone. These plates convert after the other parts of the bones, but are crucial to development.
They have a skeleton that averages 205 bones. A significant difference between the horse skeleton, compared to that of a human, is the lack of a collarbone. The horse’s front limb system is attached to the spinal column by a powerful set of muscles, tendons and ligaments that attach the shoulder blade to the torso.
The horse’s legs and hooves are also unique structures. Their leg bones are proportioned differently from those of a human. For example, the body part that is called a horse’s “knee” is actually made up of the carpal bones that correspond to the human wrist. Similarly, the hock contains the bones equivalent to those in the human ankle and heel.
The lower leg bones of a horse correspond to the bones of the human hand or foot, and the fetlock (incorrectly called the “ankle”) is actually the proximal sesamoid bones between the cannon bones (a single equivalent to the human metacarpal or metatarsal bones) and the proximal phalanges, located where one finds the “knuckles” of a human.
A horse also has no muscles in its legs below the knees and hocks, only skin, hair, bone, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and the assorted specialised tissues that make up the hoof.
(Source: Wikipedia: The Free Online Encyclopedia)
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