if you have the time – how do you think horses might differ if they were a carnivorous species? like in skeletal structure, overall look, maybe even behaviour etc
First of all, they would not be horses, They would be some sort of eldrich demonic fae beast monstrosity and I would like exactly none of that, thank you very much.
But on topic, some of the way an equine species would need to be modified to become carnivorous include:
Wider mouths. Horse mouths don’t open very far and are geared towards chewing high fiber diets. All their dentition needs to change.
So does their lips and jaw muscles. The carnivore horse needs to be able to open wide and have a strong bite force. The strongest jaw muscles of horses are for chewing grass side to side, they need more chomping power.
Forward facing eyes if this species hunts rather than scavenging. Horses have great peripheral vision but poor binocular vision.
A sensible digestive system, for goodness sake.
Whether you keep them quadrupedal or make them bipedal is up to you, both motions of locomotion are efficient enough.
They may have longer tail bones for increased dexterity when turning at speed.
Whether you keep the hooves or switch to claws is up to your design, but the claws are definitely more concerning.
Continuing to live (and hunt) in a group keeps the horsey flavor and is extra concerning. Imagine them playing tug of war with a corpse like wolves do.
Somebody better at speculative biology than me please draw this Hell Horse, as I am now curious about how the christ it would look.
To add on to the bits about the facial muscles, a lot of carnivorous mammals have very large temporalis muscles. These go on the top/back of the skull and attach to the sagittal crest. They take up a lot of space on the head, enough that their skulls look significantly smaller than their heads do from the top.
Here’s a lion:
And here’s a horse:
Here’s something that’s a bit more of a ‘horse as decended from carnivorans’ (because I’m more familiar with them):
Just for funzies here’s how I picture the rest of the beast:
Two-toed hooves, the remaining toes of the carnivore paw are adapted into raptorial claws. Hind dew claws, if present, are vestigial. The neck is shorter than a horse’s and the spine is more limber. Belly is leaner as the intestines are shorter and take up less space in the body.
That’s an excellent illustration of the skull musculature. And the rest of it is just… well I can’t fault it, but I don’t want it to exist.
