Hyracotherium

Hyracotherium, illustration by Heinrich Harder ( 1920 )

• North America
• Europe
• Asia

Hyracotherium (formerly Eohippus ) is an extinct genus of odd-toed ungulates of the Paleogene (about 55.8 to about 48.6 mya ) of Eurasia and North America. The genus belongs to the root group of horses and is considered one of the earliest known representatives of the horse family ( Hippomorpha or Equoidea ).

Features

The animal had a shoulder height of about 20 Zentimetern.Damit it was about the size of a fox. The back was arched, the neck is relatively short. It had four toes on the front feet and three toes on the hind legs, in contrast to today's horses. The molars were niederkronig and thus adapted to soft plant food such as leaves. Presumably Hyracotherium a resident swampy forests and lived in groups. Fossils from the early Eocene ( Ypresium ) are known from Europe, North America and Asia.

Designation

The British anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen published the first description in 1841 of Hyracotherium ( " Hyrax ( Hyrax = ) - like animal " ) on the basis of an incomplete discovery from England. The American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh published in 1876, the description of a complete fossil from North America, which he called Eohippus (Greek " dawn horse " ), after Eos, the goddess of dawn in Greek mythology. Having had turned out to be over 100 years later that it was the same taxon found on the findings, received the genus according to the priority rule, the name of the senior synonym.

System

The systematic position of Hyracotherium is still controversial. Earlier it was considered as the oldest representative of the horses ( Equidae), today one is more prone to classify it in the Palaeotheriidae, an extinct Oligocene family who form the group of horses relatives ( Hippomorpha or Equoidea ) with the horses. Sometimes it is also classified as basal (original ) Representatives of the horse family.