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The line between (fat) cow and (thin) horse

Why? Why doesn't a very thin cow get mistaken for a horse? Why don't very fat horses look like cows?

DECEMBER 2023 UPDATE

It's quite needless to say, but I was right- and some of my friends appear to agree with me. Unfortunately, I have no proof to present to backup such claims: I have switched to an Energizer dumbphone (mine isn't on their website because it's just that awesome). Such a simpler life. Now I have more time to look at cows and horses. So, no screenshots available. Regardless, a dear friend of mine wisely decided to switch sides the moment they mistook a cow for a horse in real life.

Same thing happened to my own mother too, before my eyes.

My meds were upped and my therapist dropped me so I do not have time nor will to photoshop a proper cow-horse. I apologize. But it doesn't end here.

That's the question I posed myself when my girlfriend sent me this picture and caption

Chaos ensues.

Here's the issue at hand. You can tell them apart. You can distinguish a cow and a horse so, so easily, but why?
Given that our animals in this case have the same coat pattern, why the hell are they so different?

The main differences you might point out are:

• ears
• hooves
• tail
• structure
• long legs
(credits to my friends, who are in the wrong, and also very, very mad at me, for these points)
• neck*(see end of page)

To all of you defending these, I must say: try picturing a horse with a cow's ears, or tail. A horse with a robust structure.

It's still a horse. A damn horse. Or a big pony at best. Ponies are the real middle ground here, I think the answer lies within them.

Those are not the cow's main points.

Now, you might argue that by replacing all those elements, you'd surely get to the other animal, at some point. But WHEN?. WHEN is such point?! Is it after the minor details? Or would changing the ribcage and legs be enough? Does this make the line a gradient? Don't you see that this defies logic? If that line is a gradient, then what animal does it look like during the morphing process? I think, surely either of those two. It will not look like a hybrid. It will look like either a COW, or a HORSE. Point is- when does that change? Does it ever?

Will you still see a cow beneath that horse, knowing what it went through, what it once was? If so, what is your opinion on trans people?

My fear is that there's something more than what you see. Sure, the cow's legs are taller, and the horse's ribcage is more square, but then again, try switching those things. Nothing will change.

My theory is that there is no line that divides horse and cow. It is a spectrum, an animorph of sort that cannot be accurately traced to each end. A hybrid cannot exist for it is lost in said spectrum, and yet it has been hybrid all along.

Perhaps, it is just the taste of their meat.

Perhaps, it was the milk.

*as I pointed out to my girlfriend, the neck poses the same issue as the other pieces. I tried to prove my point to her by using a picture of a cow with a longer neck, stretched to the sky.

Unfortunately, it appears that cow is not real.

So this point has yet to be visually proven.

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