Page 176 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism

Once Upon a Time
There Was Darwinism

small fox-like creature found in Africa, he called it
Hyracotherium. The hyrax's skeleton was almost identi-
cal to Owen's finding, except for its skull and the tail.

As they did with other fossils, paleontologists who adopted
Darwinism began to evaluate Hyracotherium from an evolutionist
point of view. In 1874, the Russian paleontologist Vladimir
Kovalevsky tried to establish a relationship between
Hyracotherium and horses. In 1879, two well-known evolutionists
of the time carried this enterprise further and compiled the horse
series which was to remain on the Darwinist agenda for years to

come. The American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh, to-
gether with Thomas Huxley (known as Darwin's bulldog), de-

Hyra cot he ri um,
pla ced at the be gin -
ning of the so-cal led horse
se ri es, was originally identified by Ric hard Owen,
an an ti-Dar wi nist. But la ter pa le on to lo gists so ught
to con form this creature to evolution.

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