The First Horses Were the Size of House Cats

Imagine a horse you could hold in your arms. Not a toy horse—a real, living, breathing horse small enough to curl up on your couch. That was Sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, and it was roughly the size of a house cat.

These miniature equines weighed about 8.5 pounds and stood just 8 to 10 inches tall at the shoulder. For perspective, that's smaller than many dog breeds and about the same size as a Siamese cat.

Dawn of the Horse

Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of extreme global warming around 56 million years ago. North America looked nothing like it does today—think dense, subtropical forests stretching from coast to coast, filled with strange mammals still figuring out their place in a post-dinosaur world.

These tiny horses weren't galloping across open plains. They were forest dwellers, picking their way through undergrowth on their small, padded feet. Unlike modern horses with their single hooves, Sifrhippus had multiple toes—four on each front foot and three on each back foot.

Why So Small?

Here's where it gets fascinating. Scientists discovered that Sifrhippus actually shrank during the PETM. As temperatures rose, these horses got smaller—shrinking by about 30% over 130,000 years. When the climate cooled again, they rebounded in size by 75%.

This phenomenon, called Bergmann's Rule in reverse, suggests that smaller bodies were advantageous during hot periods. Smaller animals can shed heat more efficiently, and they require less food—crucial advantages when resources become scarce.

What They Ate

Forget the image of horses grazing on grass. Sifrhippus was a browser, munching on:

• Soft leaves and shoots
• Fruits from forest trees
• Seeds and tender vegetation

Grasses as we know them hadn't evolved yet. The sweeping grasslands that would eventually shape horse evolution were still millions of years in the future.

From Cat-Sized to Clydesdale

The journey from Sifrhippus to modern horses is one of the most complete evolutionary records in paleontology. Over 56 million years, horses grew larger, lost their toes (evolving single hooves), and adapted to open grasslands as forests gave way to prairies.

Modern horses can weigh over 2,000 pounds—roughly 235 times heavier than their tiny ancestors. It's the equivalent of humans evolving from the size of mice.

Next time you see a horse, remember: their great-great-great (times a few million) grandparents could have fit in a shoebox. Evolution, it turns out, thinks big—even when it starts impossibly small.