Eohippus
Sign in to saveEohippus is an extinct genus of small equid ungulates. The only species is E. angustidens, which was long considered a species of Hyracotherium (now strictly defined as a member of the Palaeotheriidae rather than the Equidae). Its remains have been identified in North America and date to the Early Eocene (Ypresian stage).
Wikidata facts
- Image
- HyracotheriumVasacciensisLikeHorse.JPG
- Height
- 30
Show 4 more facts
- taxon name
- Eohippus
- Commons category
- Eohippus
- start time
- 56000000-0
- end time
- 47800000-0
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Article
4 sectionsContents
- Discovery
- Description
- See also
- References
Eohippus is an extinct genus of small equid ungulates. The only species is E. angustidens, which was long considered a species of Hyracotherium (now strictly defined as a member of the Palaeotheriidae rather than the Equidae). Its remains have been identified in North America and date to the Early Eocene (Ypresian stage).
==Discovery== thumb|left|Restoration by Charles R. Knight|Charles Knight|226x226px In 1876, Othniel C. Marsh described a skeleton as Eohippus validus, from (, 'dawn') and (, 'horse'), meaning 'dawn horse'. Its similarities with fossils described by Richard Owen were formally pointed out in a 1932 paper by Clive Forster Cooper. E. validus was moved to the genus Hyracotherium, which had priority as the name for the genus, with Eohippus becoming a junior synonym of that genus. Hyracotherium was recently found to be a paraphyletic group of species, and the genus now includes only H. leporinum. E. validus was found to be identical to an earlier-named species, Orohippus angustidens Cope, 1875, and the resulting binomial is thus Eohippus angustidens.