How Did Ponies even Evolve?

[Tao 7,765]

Well after I was thinking, part of me thought: How did the ponies evolve? Are they a off shot of horses? Did they go through a evolution like humans in gaining speech and culture? Do they have “wild ponies”/”tribal” ponies like we do in real life? Is a lost “link” some place in pony to horse connections?

[LZRD WZRD 1,929]

Natural selection

 

tips fedora

 

Or maybe they were just created by the god of ponies, whoever that is

[Megas 27,649]

With the right training, they evolve into the next stage when they reach a certain level

 

 

 

[MysticShine 529]

They didn't; they devolved.

[Cosmik Vek 764]

They evolved from a sketch drawing to a vector model in Adobe Flash/Illustrator.

Simple as that

[Time Shield 402]

The nice thing about a world with magic as a central element is that any such question can always be answered with "Magic."

[Cwanky 17,584]

The nice thing about a world with magic as a central element is that any such question can always be answered with "Magic."

Well except for philosophical stuff like the meaning of life and "why does my life suck so bad"? You might actually come off as a jackass.

[Pastel 7,630]

Nooo, I wanted to make that Pokémon joke. ;-;

 

I guess they evolved a bit like us, a few decades ago maybe they didn't have all that technology like trains and weather factories...

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I would assume that the evolution process for ponies would have been similar to the evolution of humans in some respects. Just replace primates that became progressively more sentient with each iteration with horse-like creatures, or ponies if you will, that became increasingly more sentient with each iteration. I'm also going to assume that Earth Ponies, Unicorns and Pegasi all have a common ancestor, genetically speaking. All three species closely resemble one another, so that must be the case. I would also assume that if there is a common ancestor, three groups of ponies must have separated at some point effectively leading to physical differences between the three species. For all we know there may also have been more sub-species of ponies that are long since extinct much like with our pre-history, but such conjecture needlessly complicates things. For all intents and purposes in order to keep things simple lets just treat the differences between the three pony species as similar to physical differences in human ethnic groups.

 

As for whether aboriginal ponies exist who are much like the buffaloes...there's no evidence of them but we have only seen a fraction of Equestria, let alone the rest of the pony world. Again, for the sake of keeping things simple, let's just assume there aren't, especially since those other species serve the function of aboriginal people in FiM. Then again, we don't know what species the delegates from Saddle Arabia are or what that implies about the world outside of Equestria. Of course buffaloes and zebras complicate things as they are other sentient species who likely have a similar ancestor to the three pony species, but would have split off from them at a much earlier point, meaning that it may be like what would have happened if Neanderthals lived on and continued to co-exist with humans, or at least that's the closest comparison I can come up with since we don't currently co-exist with another sentient species.

[Antidaeophobia 299]

Well after I was thinking, part of me thought: How did the ponies evolve? Are they a off shot of horses? Did they go through a evolution like humans in gaining speech and culture? Do they have “wild ponies”/”tribal” ponies like we do in real life? Is a lost “link” some place in pony to horse connections?

Humans were wiped out by a horrific nuclear apocalypse, and ponies rose as the new dominant life form.

[Trickilee 139]

Hm. A bit carefully, maybe?

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

The dominant species at the time, deer, went through a severe population loss for reasons lost to history. As such they left many abandoned cities that are quite inacessible. However the loss of the deer was a gain for the ponies which allowed them to evolve into the dominant species they.

 

The deer still live; though.

 

That wes serious headcanon stuff, BTW.

[The Awesome One 1,315]

I think that just like in the real world. The theory of evolution applies to the world of My Little Pony as well. Celestia and Luna just gave the first single-cell organisms a little push and from there it just never stopped.

 

However the world of MLP also has magic. I'm guessing the wings, horns and toughness to the Pony races were gifts from Celestia. She gave one of her traits to every race.

[Daring_Do 552]

Well, if Wikipedia's to be believed, "The ancestors of most modern ponies developed small stature because they lived on the margins of livable horse habitat."

[Time Shield 402]

Well except for philosophical stuff like the meaning of life and "why does my life suck so bad"? You might actually come off as a jackass.

 

For the answers to those questions, in Equestria at least, the answer changes from "Magic" to "Destiny".

[Argumedies 1,748]

MAGIC!

 

okay, now that we've got the most obvious and stupid answer out of the way...

 

(Reads older post) damn, someone beat me to it.

 

okay, Second dumb answer

 

I vote for cave-ponies

Edited May 6, 2015 by Argumedies

[Mr. Mustang 647]

I'd agree that ponies probably evolved the same way humans did, except their ancestors were quadrupeds. Who's to say, (aside from Star Trek) all evolved forms of life had to be bipedal?

 

Another theory that's my favourite is that ponies inherit the earth millions of years into the future after humans are long gone.

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I'd agree that ponies probably evolved the same way humans did, except their ancestors were quadrupeds. Who's to say, (aside from Star Trek) all evolved forms of life had to be bipedal?

 

Another theory that's my favourite is that ponies inherit the earth millions of years into the future after humans are long gone.

I actually kind of surbscribe to both theories The comics subtly imply the latter in the Nightmare Rarity arc when Luna refers to the planet as Earth, but there's no proof that it's our Earth, nor is it clear how the name could possibly be anything more than a coincidence even if it is our Earth as humans will have been gone many millennia before ponies will have become sentient and knowledgeable enough to be aware that they live on an interplanetary rock. Of course, if the comic's B canon is to be factored in, I'm at a loss as to how to explain evolution of ponies in a world that was once ruled by jackals and cats as late as an equivalent to Earth's Ancient Egypt, though perhaps that can be explained as a part of the world outside of Equestria.