Eohippus is a daman?

Hi, in 1985 when I was 13 I was fed this quote to discredit horse evolution:

“Eohippus , supposedly the earliest horse, and said by experts to be long extinct and known to us only through fossils, may in fact be alive and well and not a horse at all​—a shy, fox-sized animal called a daman that darts about in the African bush.” (The Neck of the Giraffe, or, Where Darwin went wrong, by Francis Hitching, 1982, p. 31.) (emphasis added)

So the Eohippus evolved into the daman? That means it lost its tail, and proto-hoofs. Feel free to comment on this however you like. As a 13 year old, I found this to be very suspicious, and it still puzzles me. (The 1985 book with this quote in it is no longer in print.)

For reference, here is a link to the daman skeleton and links to the Eohippus skeleton:

“Daman” would appear to be an archaic term for “hyrax”. Well of course Hyracotherium has some resemblance to a hyrax; that’s where the name came from. But hyraxes are afrotherians, not perissodactyls. So big problem for that notion.

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You’re missing a major concept here. Evolution is not linear, with a species (or an individual) “evolving into” another. They would have a common ancestor.

Thank you for making that connection. :slight_smile:

Right, I’m just trying to summarize Hitching’s claim.