Merychippus
Sign in to saveMerychippus is an extinct proto-horse of the family Equidae that was endemic to North America during the Miocene, 15.97–5.33 million years ago. It had three toes on each foot and is the first horse known to have grazed.
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, Merychippus is referenced by 88 other articles, and connects out to rhinoceros, Tapiroidea and odd-toed ungulate.
It is catalogued under topics including Equinae, Fossil taxa described in 1856 and Miocene genus first appearances.
Its subject is documented across 21 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Merychippus skeletal reconstruction.png
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- Commons category
- Merychippus
- start time
- 15900000-0
- end time
- 10300000-0
- taxon name
- Merychippus
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Encyclopedic overview
5 sectionsContents
- Discovery and naming
- Description
- Classification
- References
- External links
Merychippus is an extinct proto-horse of the family Equidae that was endemic to North America during the Miocene, 15.97–5.33 million years ago. It had three toes on each foot and is the first horse known to have grazed.
==Discovery and naming== thumb|left|Restoration of Merychippus insignis Merychippus was named by Joseph Leidy (1856). Numerous authors assigned the type species – Merychippus insignis – to Protohippus, but this is ignored. It was assigned to the Equidae by Leidy (1856) and Carroll (1988), and to the Equinae by MacFadden (1998) and Bravo-Cuevas and Ferrusquía-Villafranca (2006). The genus name comes from Ancient Greek μηρυκασθαι (mērukasthai), meaning "to ruminate", and ἵππος (híppos), meaning "horse", but current evidence does not support Merychippus ruminating.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Merychippus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.