Hippidion

Hippidion, skeleton in the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires.

• Southern United States (California, Texas)
• South America

Hippidion is an extinct mammal genus from the family of horses. She lived until the late Pleistocene in South America and died out only about 10,000 years ago.

After the emergence of the Central American land bridge in the late Pliocene many animal groups from North to South America migrated. These included various types horses. Hippidion appeared 2.5 million years ago, shortly after the emergence of the Central American land bridge first time in South America. The horses of the genus Equus, which also migrated from North America ago, South America reached until about 1 to 1.5 million years ago. Originally, it was assumed that the genus Hippidion has separated from the horses of the genus Equus already 10 million years ago, but more recent DNA analysis shows that both lines developed apparently only in the late Pliocene, about 3 million years apart. Thus Hippidion is probably more closely related to the current horses than previously thought.

In the late Pleistocene Hippidion was saldiasi, which is also detected in the area around Buoenos Aires, apparently the only equine Patagonia. In central Argentina and southern Bolivia horses lived on the other hand the genus Equus Hippidion next - horses in the same area.

Of the horses of the genus Equus, it differed by a deep incision nose and the concomitant reduction of the nasal bones to long narrow bone clasps. The much shorter shackle legs be interpreted as an adaptation to mountainous habitats.