Page 164 - The Transitional Form Dilemma
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THE TRANSITIONAL-FORM DILEMMA
Eohippus, believed to have been the first ancestor of the horse, has nothing to do
with and no similarity to the horse, although it bears a close resemblance to the
hyrax, which lives in present-day Africa.
worked-out example. But the fact is that the line from Eohippus to Equus is
very erratic. It is alleged to show a continual increase in size, but the truth is
that some variants were smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens from dif-
ferent sources can be brought together in a convincing-looking sequence, but
there is no evidence that they were actually ranged in this order in time. 141
Horses appear fully formed in the fossil record, with all their features in tact. If
horses had really come into being through evolution, then they must have undergone
transitional stages such as those shown on the right on this page and those overleaf.
Yet there is very definitely no trace of such forms in the fossil record.
Example of an
imaginary tran-
A fully formed and com-
sitional form.
plete present-day
horse.
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