Eohippus
| Eohippus Temporal range: early Eocene
| |
|---|---|
| |
| National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Class: | |
| Order: | |
| Family: | |
| Genus: | †Eohippus (Marsh, 1876)
 |
Eohippus is small fossil proto-horse. It is an extinct genus of small equid ungulates.[1] The only species is E. angustidens, which was long considered a species of Hyracotherium. Its remains have been found in North America and date to the early Eocene (48–56 million years ago).[2]
Much of the evolution of the horse took place in North America. That is where horses originated, but became extinct there about 10,000 years ago.[3]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ MacFadden B.J. 2005. "Evolution: Fossil horses--evidence for evolution. Science 307 (5716): 1728–1730. [1]
- ↑ Froehlich D.J. 2002. Quo vadis eohippus? The systematics and taxonomy of the early Eocene equids (Perissodactyla). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 134 (2): 141–256. [2]
- ↑ Singer, Ben (May 2005). A brief history of the horse in America. Canadian Geographic Magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-01-07. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
