Researchers have discovered the fossil of a special mammal in the Messel Pit. It could be a primeval horse, said the head of the excavation, Torsten Wappler, from the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt. “It’s a spectacular find,” he said. The salvage work in the Unesco World Heritage Site near Darmstadt began a week ago. Now the bones are completely excavated.
“What we have seen of the legs so far definitely looks like a mammal,” the researcher reported. The location and the outline therefore strongly indicate a primal horse. Although there have already been finds of such a protozoan, many skeletons were not complete or in good condition. “Before 2015, we didn’t discover a single one for almost 30 years,” said the excavation leader. According to initial findings, it is also a young animal, as it is slightly smaller than known specimens at 20 centimeters in height.
Primitive horses are an extinct branch within horses, explained Wappler. “They weren’t that big, had different teeth and their feet looked very different than today’s horses.” Accordingly, they lived about 50 million years ago in Central Europe. “They evolved and are the forerunners of the horses as we know them today.”
Whether it really is the suspected protozoan can only be said once the find has been fully prepared. According to Wappler, this will probably not be the case until late autumn. “We have to be very careful in handling the oil shale blocks that we extracted,” explained the excavation manager. Layer by layer is carefully removed with small needles so as not to damage the bones. “And that takes time,” said Wappler.
