Amazing Discovery Found Inside 47-Million-Year-Old Horse [Photo]

This may be science’s version of the Trojan horse!

In 2000, paleontologists uncovered the fossil of an ancient horse 20 miles southeast of Frankfurt, Germany. The fossil itself was an incredible find; the bones of the tiny horse, roughly the size of a terrier dog, were clearly articulated and in good shape.

But it wasn’t until recently that scientists discovered what a treasure they actually had in the fossil of the Eurohippus messelensis mare. Thanks to the use of a high-resolution X-ray, the fossil of an unborn foal was found within the fossil of the horse. The size of the unborn horse indicates that its mother was close to term, and the position of the fetus shows that laboring was not the cause of death for the mother horse.

Dr. Jens Lorenz Franzen, leader of the team and a researcher at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, explained the reasoning in a press release about the findings of the horse fossil.

“The size of the fetus and the presence of fully developed milk teeth indicate that it was close to term when it and its mother died. Nevertheless, its position in the uterus indicates that the two did not die during the birthing process. The fetus was upside down rather than right side up, and its front legs were not yet extended as they should be just before birth.”

This is more than just a rarity; since the researchers were even able to identify the placenta of the horse, it makes this fossil only the second known fossil with this structure preserved.

“Almost all of the bones of the fetus are still articulated in their original position. Only the skull is crushed,” Dr. Franzen wrote.

It is unknown how the horse died.

One of the important conclusions drawn from being able to study the reproductive organs and the fetus of the ancient horse is that, despite the large difference in size and structure from ancient horse to modern, both reproduced in much the same way.

The remains of the pregnant horse were discovered at the Messel Pit, where more than 1,000 different species of fauna and flora, from between 57 million and 36 million years old, have been discovered. It’s considered a veritable treasure trove for fossils, according to Dr. Franzen, who explains that the oil shales that formed at the bottom of an ancient lake located there helped preserve animal and plant remains as fossils — or, as she writes, “Messel fossils preserve these remains not directly, but as images.”

Horses evolved over a period of around 50 million years, beginning as a small creature with toes rather than hooves, to the large, beautiful animal that it is today.

For more exciting archaeological discoveries, read about the ancient temple recently found in Ukraine, or the mysteries of the so-called “witch girl,” whose body was recently discovered.