A Horse Isn't A Horse, Of Course, Of Course · 3:56pm Jan 6th, 2014
I've come to the conclusion that there is no way that the Ponies are genus Equus (the one including our world's extant horses, donkeys and zebras, and numerous extinct varieties). My reason for this conclusion are the existence of gross anatomical differences, even between the Earth Ponies and real horses. (I mention the Earth Ponies because they are the Pony race which is physically most like actual horses).
Let us consider the physical dissimilarities between the Earth Ponies and real horses.
The most obvious change is that the skull has undergone modification similar to that involved in the transition from prosimians to humans. The cranium has greatly expanded to accommodate a much larger brain. The length of the jaws has been reduced, more in mares than in stallions, but extremely in both sexes. The eyes have increased in size and moved forward, allowing a field of binocular vision almost as wide as humans (and consequently reducing peripheral vision, though not as much as in humans).
We do not know exactly what real spoken Equestrian sounds like, but it is a reasonable assumption that there has been modification of the voice box, lips and tongue to allow for more complex vocalizations than in real horses. This is a relatively minor modification compared to the ones mentioned above, but as in humans implies some changes both to reflexes and learned behavior, to avoid having ingestion interfere with respiration (in plain language, choking on their food).
A real horse is capable of fine manipulation only with the mouth, lips and tongue. The Ponies can use their hooves for feats of dexterity exceeded only by primates and proboscideans among our land mammals, and this despite the complete lack of any additional toes (modern equids have only a single greatly-expanded toe on each limb, from which the hoof -- an enlarged fingernail / toenail, depends). The two most obvious mechanisms are gecko-like suckers and telekinesis, and they may use both. For what it's worth, Pony hooves are much more flexible than those of real horses.
One gross anatomical difference which you may have not noticed because you take it for granted in yourself is that the Ponies have much greater flexibility of their limbs, especially their forelimbs, than is the case in real equids. In particular, their shoulders appear to have almost the full degree of freedom of motion found in primates, and their wrists can bend like ours, allowing them to oppose their hooves and grip objects "two-handed." The price which they must pay for this is that they would be somewhat slower runners, with less running endurance than is the case for real horses (the stiffer limbs of a real horse make running easier than it would be for a Pony).
All these modifications tell me two things: higher intelligence, and a higher place on the food chain. The intelligence requires a larger skull to contain the enlarged brain, and allows smaller jaws (Ponies cook most of their food). It also provides a huge advantage for manual dexterity, as the sapient Ponies can build and use all sorts of tools to enhance their survival, reproductive prospects and overall comfort. Being smart, Ponies can engage in coordinated defense tactics against would-be predators, and make and use weapons which make them far more deadly in combat, which means that they make far more difficult prey.
Literally, Ponies are more likely to turn and fight than to run from predators of equivalent sizes, compared to real-life equids, and more likely to be successful at such a tactic. Real equids have two ways of dealing with predation: they can run (their primary defense) or they can turn and fight (they are fiercer than you might think looking at domestic horses, which after all have been bred to be our symbiotes). Fighting for an actual equid is extremely dangerous against, say, a lioness -- though zebras will sometimes do this.
Because the Ponies are sapient, they can choose to carry weapons into dangerous country, or develop skills (such as the Pony equivalent of martial arts) which make them truly deadly fighters. They can fight smart, outwitting an opponent and taking advantage of its weaknesses. If they do choose to run, they can use their superior intelligence and agility (the more flexible forelimbs would allow them to easily change course even at a full gallop) and use terrain to their advantage. And of course they can gang-up against their foes, hitting them from all sides until they either flee or are slain.
A wide field of binocular vision is advantageous in fighting. It means that one can easily gauge the exact distance to any object within a certain range (based on the distance between the two eyes involved). In humans, who are naturally good at this sort of thing, it lets us throw rocks and other objects (knives, javelins etc.) with great accuracy (this is in fact one of the things we evolved specifically as humans -- we are much better at this than are the other great apes, and it's one of the human abilities we tend to take for granted because it is so easy for us to accomplish). We have seen in-canon that the Ponies can do this -- they use missile weapons such as crossbows and they can kick objects toward a foe with great accuracy (Applejack frequently demonstrates this ability in the action episodes).
That's the Earth Ponies. If we proceed to the Unicorns (who have grown a whole new external organ, the horn) and Pegasi (who have an additional pair of limbs, their wings, which are externally similar to avian wings -- which is to say a structure deployed by a different evolutionary Class, Aves -- but have some major internal anatomical differences) we see even greater anatomical differences. There are also the Flutter Ponies (reduced size, wings apparently deriving from the design employed by a whole other phylum -- the arthopods) and the Sea Ponies (who are more fully-aquatic than ceteceans, as they can breathe underwater), but these two groups seem to have gone extinct in modern times.
One less obvious difference is that all three living kinds of Ponies seem to have significant psycho-kinetic aptitude and employ it routinely in their life processes. In addition to their subtle magic, the Earth Ponies may use telekinesis to aid in their manual dexterity (making them the most efficient magic-users of all three kinds, since doing this does not create an "aura glow," and an "aura glow" screams to me of wasted energy) -- the other two breeds also do this, but are less adept at such manipulation. Unicorn telekinesis is blatantly obvious; I'll merely mention that it seems to be mostly channeled through their horns, which are clearly organs mostly used for that purpose rather than for physical butting or goring. Pegasi flight must be largely telekinetic levitation and propulsion, as their wings are far too small to support any such ability, and moreover most pegasi appear capable of very great flight speeds. You will also notice that a really fast pegsus (such as 20 Percent More Awesome herself, Rainbow Dash) generates a streamlined force field over her body; this can clearly be seen in the episode "Sonic Rainboom").
All these differences force me to conclude that the Ponies have moved out of genus Equus entirely, and require their own genus name. If we're going to go with the show, a good generic name would be Cabalminusculus, a composite Latin term meaning, literally, "little pony." There are at least three species contained within Cabalminusculus, these being C. equus (the Ponies), C. asinus (the donkeys) and C. zebra (the Zebras).
Since the three known Pony kinds are fully interfertile, they are obviously at most separate subspecies, rather than species. My proposed subspecies names are C. equus terra (Earth Ponies), C. equus pegasus (Pegasi) and C. equus unicornus (Unicorns). The obvious fourth "kind," alicorns, are really a different phase of the species C. equus: we know in-canon that alicorns can appear from Unicorns or Pegasi, and can probably appear from Earth Ponies as well. From supplemental material, we know that alicorns and unicorns appear to be interfertile, and I would suspect that they are interfertile with all other Ponies.
Members of the Pony species are probably only partially interfertile with members of other species within the genus. We have seen "mules" in-canon (for real equids, mules are the cross between a horses and donkeys, and are usually infertile). We do not know if Ponies and Zebras are interfertile. Zecora seems uninterested in attempting the experiment.
Now, the discerning may have noticed that I have used terms like "change" and "modification" rather than "evolution" here. The reason is simple.
I don't think that the Ponies are naturally-evolved, either as a species or as a genus.
I think that they were Uplifted, from natural equid stock.
But that's a whole other discussion.
You! I like you!
I learned to prefer "Descent with modification" over "evolution" anyway so I still translate it properly no matter how you phrase it.
Also, I really get the distinct feeling that you have this thing about thinking on how to make things make sense. Something I enjoy and employ. I'm getting the feeling that you think on how to explain things even if the explanation might never make it into the story proper. I see this as the markings of an great writer as they are the ones that make stories the most believable and if they ever do find a place in the story where an explanation is needed, well they've already thought of it.
I expect many great things now.
P.S. Great analysis on the species of MLP, I found little if anything that I would disagree with here.
1692087
Well, to be precise, I don't think that any of the kinds of ponies save the Earth ponies could possibly have evolved by the operation of natural selection upon heritable variation from Equus stock. The Earth ponies could be simply what you get when equids get on the intelligence-escalator (any way of life that greatly rewards superior intellect), but no way would this explain even unicorn horns, let alone pegasus wings, sea pony gills or flutter pony wings (which are insectile). Those had to be deliberate genetic engineering, or biomantic modification, or whatever one wishes to term it.
My suspicions are further fueled by the abundance of powerful semi-divine beings, lost races etc. in their world. Not the least of whom is Celestia herself.
Yes, when I am a serious fan of a show, I do try to think out how things might make sense. This is both because I do the same thing regarding the real world, and because the more implied background I know the easier it is to create other aspects of a world.
I'm glad you liked my article
1693955
In regards to the Flutter Ponies (a term I am unfamiliar with and assume to be similar to, if not actually, Changelings), their similarity to Ponies could be an actual adaptation. This is only the case if ponies comprise some part of their life-cycle (e.g. food source).
Personally, I think that the show, being a work of fiction, can't be directly translated out into "reality". There's far too much artistic license and Humanisms that go into the show to make it both familiar and entertaining that I feel any attempt at "realism" would have to discard things from the show in order to "make sense".
That said, I agree with you on the uplifted part. A sort of origin story I've had bouncing around in my head follows a similar pretense.
EDIT: Also, my apologies for commenting on, what is now, a slightly older blog post. I just found the topic very interesting and worth further discussion.
1747881
The Flutter Ponies were a race of (full-sized) fairy-like Ponies from the original My Little Pony series. They were shy and fearful of the outside world (which, given the hellish nature of the G1 world, at least until Megan came along, made good sense). They may have been natural empaths. They could coordinate their wings in an "Utter Flutter," which was essentially a fantasy Wave Motion Gun sort of attack.
The Changelings seem to me a lot like cursed or twisted Flutter Ponies, in rather the manner that the Orcs were made from the Elves in Tolkien's universe. I don't think they're actually insectoid -- numerous vertebrates have developed exoskeletons, and most of their anatomy looks at least as tetrapod to me as does that of a Pegasus or Flutter Pony.
1747881
Oh, and I'm actually quite glad that my post was interesting enough to elicit comments after such a long time. I love getting comments -- it's why I bother to make the posts in the first place!
The final idea the ponies where uplifted, is what im using for the background of my fanfic. In my case. They where made by ancestral aliens.
2044990
The idea of intentional Uplift struck me as particularly likely because
(1) They are too horse-like not to have been derived from equine stock, but
(2) They have too many non-equid features, which work too well together for sapient tool-users (not just the big brains but also the sticky hooves and the ball-and-socket shoulder joints) for this to seem entirely natural, and especially
(3) The fact that one of the three Kinds (the Pegasi) have an extra set of limbs (the wings) and yet all three Kinds are interfertile -- that pretty much clinches it. Mind you, this wouldn't be so weird if they were eusocial insects, but equids have no such evolutionary history of producing specialized castes.
(4) And speaking of eusociality, the Changelings very much appear to be a very modified Pony Kind, and that supplies further evidence for extensive artificial modification.
My exact lÃnea of tinking. Final conclution. Created by some no natural force. You can call it what You like. Gods, aliens, humans. Etc. Etc.
Makes sense to me, though I think the "force field" you mentioned with Dash was just a Mach cone. No, if you want to see visual evidence of pegasus flight magic, look at the contrails left behind at high speeds. Lightning Dust demonstrates that they aren't unique to Dash, and that they're jut as personalized as unicorn auras, if not more so.
Also, I'm going to note that in my headcanon, a unicorn horn contains at outgrowth of the brain specially adapted to do most of the magical heavy lifting. Definitely not for goring things.
2058756
The contrail thing is a good point. The reasons I assume that the "flight field" also has s-- some protective force field attributes are that (1) the Pegasus doesn't feel the full effects of her own speed on her own body -- she can look ahead and breathe normally while flying, which you couldn't if you stuck your head out into a hundreds-of-miles-per-hour slipstream, (2) the contrail, and (3) the fact that the Pegasus can endure what would otherwise be bone-breaking collisions in crash landings.
A Unicorn (or Alicorn) coud in a pinch ram or gore with her horn, just as you are I could fight by head-butting. It's obviously just not anatomically-optimal for that function -- it's primary purpose is as a magic-focusing organ.
A fitting name for ponies as a species, to differentiate from ponies on earth, could be Faust's Diminutive Horse.
2058756
Definately pretty cool. Especially Lightning Dust, she has an awesome trail behind her, what a good team
Fascinating stuff. Love it!
Tactile telekinesis is the easiest explanation of course. I haven't heard the gecko one before. It's good, though it would seem that running on hard surfaces would rapidly wear out the nanofibers.
I saw someone propose granular jamming to explain 'grippy hooves'. I thought that was pretty epic. Imagine ponies having some sort of pneumatic suction mechanism in the lower legs that can tighten up a bag of bones the size of grains of sand.
2635893
Watching the show carefully, I've inclined toward a combination of suckers and tactile telekinesis now. The reason why is that telekinesis seems to be a common Pony thing -- the Earth Ponies would have the most dextrous hooves because their telekinesis would be strongly focused on their hooves.
This is also my explanation for Maud Pony's ability to cannonball-fly, demonstrated in her episode. Her tactile telekinesis is so strong that she can essentially use it as an engine. She is, of course, far less graceful and maneuverable with her pseudo-flightfield than is a Pegasus with her true flightfield. And she can't control it finely enough to cloudwalk.
2635910
Speaking of pegasi, their flight can also be considered a sort of self-telekinesis. How often have we seen RD hovering indoors without so much as causing a gust of wind? Also with wing/body proportions like that there's no way they would be doing proper flying (or hovering or breaking the sound barrier) purely from the physical aerodynamics of the feathers moving through the air. Therefore: Magic wings.
Also in regards to flight, it's worth mentioning that something needs to protect their eyes if they are going to fly any faster than say, 60kph. Those massive, likely well-lubricated eyes would be serious bug and dust catchers at any significant speed.
2635917
I call the telekinetic effect a "flightfield." You can actually see the flightfield when a Pegasus travels fast -- a visible standing wave builds up in the front, the air is heated to ionization, and they trail thin plasma. Rainbow Dash's flightfield is particularly spectacular, but any fast Pegasus can produce this effect.
The wings are important because they are the primary effectors / radiators for a Pegasus, with a secondary one being the hooves (for cloudwalking, which is a passive flightfield paramagnetically interacting with water vapor). This is the equivalent of a Unicorn's horn or an Earth Pony's hooves.
Too dissimilar from horses to be a mere uplift. I say they were engineered, whole cloth, by someone who likes horses.
ETA: That is to say that the entire biosphere was engineered. "Elven theme park" was the term I had seen.
Something else to add to this thread. I was visiting friends a few weeks back who have horses, and one was left in the paddock while the others were out for a ride. The poor fellow wasn't too happy to be left alone, so I approached him with my daughter and he was anxious but also interactive. He let out a loud whinny right in front of me and I could see that it came entirely out of his nostrils. I asked about this, and apparently horses cannot breathe through their mouths. I didn't realize this before, but if you think about it, this would 100% prevent any sort of speaking since the air passing through the mouth is what makes speech possible. Therefore, a crucial difference between MLP ponies and real life ponies/horses is that they can breathe through their mouths, thus allowing speech.
"I will not enumerate the reasons why; I simply will not give it a try."
(we need a Zecora emoticon)
3623807
Indeed. Quite unlike the numerous clopfics in which Zecora seems extremely interested in attempting that experiment. And others, mostly OOC for her.
3623875 In the above scenario, Zecora's (and Big Mac's) discomfort was more due to hardly knowing their "mate" and all the monitoring equipment (with Twilight taking copious notes, of course).
3624000
I assumed the first; the second is the worst!
3623807
Maybe after her role in S5E26 [she is not in the first part of the finale]; we could get her for the next Fimfiction update.
3629524
"My role has been key, you need a tag for me!"
3623807 "Could you not simply use a spell to learn if such a match would turn out well?"
Show!
Saving this blog, for posterior use in worldbuilding along with your other posts.
Thank you very much for sharing your views in the matter.