New York Times: A Tiny Horse That Got Even Tinier as the Planet Heated Up


Artist's reconstruction of Sifrhippus sandrae (right) touching noses with a modern Morgan horse (left) that stands about 5 feet high at the shoulders and weighs approximately 1000 lbs.
Illustration by Danielle Byerley  

Rising seas, killer storms, droughts, extinctions and money wasted on snowblowers are not the only things to worry about on a warming planet. There is also the shrinking issue.

It happened to Sifrhippus, the first horse, 56 million years ago. Sifrhippus shrank from about 12 pounds average weight to about eight and a half pounds as the climate warmed over thousands of years, a team of researchers recently reported in the journal Science.

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Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 3/3/2012 11:00 AM
Categories: Climate
Tags: climate change global warming shrinking sifrhippus research horse
 

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