Anchitherium

Anchitherium (meaning near beast) was a fossil horse with a three-toed hoof.

Anchitherium
Temporal range:
Anchitherium aurelianense, Hypohippus equinus, Merychippus sejunctus, and M. sphenodus fossils in Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Equidae
Subfamily: †Anchitheriinae
Genus: †Anchitherium
von Meyer, 1844
Type species
Anchitherium ezquerrae
Species
  • A. alberdiae
  • A. aurelianense
  • A. australis
  • A. castellanum
  • A. clarencei
  • A. corcolense
  • A. cursor
  • A. ezquerrae
  • A. gobiense
  • A. hippoides
  • A. matritense
  • A. navasotae
  • A. parequinum
  • A. procerum

Anchitherium was a browsing (leaf eating) horse that originated in the early Miocene of North America and subsequently dispersed to Europe and Asia, where it gave rise to the larger bodied genus Sinohippus. It was around 60 centimetres (6.0 hands) high at the shoulder, and probably represented a side-branch of horse evolution that left no modern descendants.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.