Thoatherium

Graphical live reconstruction of Thoatherium

• South America

Thoatherium was a small ungulate, which occurred in the Miocene, about 20 million years ago in South America. It resembled outwardly a small horse, but is not related to the horses, but one of the Litopterna, a group of South American ungulates ( Meridiungulata ). Their horses similarity is a case of convergent evolution.

Like today's horses Thoatherium was einhufig and resembled them in the morphology of the skull, legs and body. The degree of reduction of the side toes still went beyond the conditions in Equus. However, in contrast to modern horses they kept the niedrigkronigen, simply constructed teeth. The teeth, however, were lophodont and more than suitable for foliage food to graze. The horses clearly pronounced diastema ( gap) between the front teeth and molars is only briefly at Thoatherium. It died out long before real horses reached South America.