this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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This is just another reminder how weird a centaur is as a concept. Vertebrates don't have more than 4 limbs. Land vertebrates mostly have 4 legs, but the structure of their forelegs is very similar to human arms and wrists. Bats have wings, but their wings are basically arms with a membrane of skin between the bones. Even a Naga (human / snake hybrid) makes more sense than a centaur.
Also, think how unbalanced a centaur would be. Instead of a trunk that merely has to support a neck and a head, a centaur has to support a full half-human right at the front of its body. That would shift the centre of mass way forward, so most of the weight would be on the middle limbs. That would affect its ability to gallop, because in a gallop most of the running power of a horse comes from the back legs. If the back legs are almost completely unloaded because all the weight is at the front, the back legs wouldn't be able to push with much force.
A more realistic centaur would have the trunk weight shifted backwards, so instead of having a human torso replacing its neck and head, it would be like a rider on a horse but without the rider's legs or the horse's head.
Fun fact, horse heads/necks weigh about as much as human torsos do. Depending on the horse, and the human.
Modern horses are fuckin huge. It's not unreasonable to think that a horse body could support a human upper body without much additional musculature.
That just raises the question about how big a human torso would be mounted on a modern horse's torso. A huge clydesdale mare with a typical jockey's torso would look pretty ridiculous. But, maybe a clydesdale-type-centaur would have an Andre-the-giant torso, or maybe something even bigger. Maybe it would be a humanoid torso which, if it had legs, would stand 4m tall.
But, even if it is an Andre the Giant head, imagine how much grass he's going to have to eat to keep his body fed. Andre has a big mouth compared to me, but it's still small compared to a horse.
A human torso’s weight would be almost inconsequential compared to a whole ass horse body, not to mention the human part has abs and shit and will be coordinating with the horse part, cause it’s all one creature. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a ridiculous creature, I just think it could theoretically work