Hippidion
| Hippidion | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hippidion , skeleton in the Natural History Museum in London. |
||||||||||||
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Pliocene to Upper Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
| 3 million years to 10,000 years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hippidion | ||||||||||||
| Owen , 1869 | ||||||||||||
Hippidion is an extinct genus of mammals in the horse family. It livedin South Americauntil the late Pleistocene and only became extinct about 10,000 years ago.
After the creation of the Central American land bridge in the late Pliocene, many animal groups immigrated from North to South America . This also included different types of horses. Hippidion first appeared in South America 2.5 million years ago, shortly after the creation of the Central American land bridge. The horses of the genus Equus , which also immigrated from North America, only reached South America about 1 to 1.5 million years ago. Originally it was assumed that the genus Hippidion separated from the horses of the genus Equus as early as 10 million years ago , but more recent DNA analyzes show that the two lines apparently only developed apart in the late Pliocene , about 3 million years ago. Thus Hippidion is probably more closely related to today's horses than previously assumed.
In the late Pleistocene, Hippidion saldiasi , which is also proven in the area around Buenos Aires, was apparently the only horse species in Patagonia. In contrast , horses of the genus Hippidion lived in central Argentina and southern Bolivia in the same area as Equus horses.
It differed from the horses of the genus Equus by a deep nasal incision and the associated reduction of the nasal bones to long, narrow bone braces. The greatly shortened fetlocks are interpreted as an adaptation to mountainous habitats.
literature
- Jaco Weinstock et al: Evolution, Systematics and Phylogeography of Pleistocene Horses in the New World: A Molecular Perspective. In: PLoS Biology . Volume 3, No. 8, 2005, e241, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pbio.0030241 .
- Jens Lorenz Franzen : The primeval horses of the dawn. Elsevier / Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-8274-1680-9 .
Web links
- The Paleobiology Database Hippidion