Dinohippus
Name:
Dinohippus
(Terrible horse).
Phonetic: Dy-noe-hip-pus.
Named By: J. H. Quinn - 1955.
Synonyms: Dinohippus edensis, Dinohippus
muelleri, Dinohippus ocotensis, Dinohippus osborni, Equus
mesamexicanus, Hippidium interpolatum, Hippidion spectans,
Hippidium spectans, Hippotigris ocotensis, Pliohippus bakeri,
Pliohippus coalingensis, Pliohippus edensis, Pliohippus osborni,
Protohippus coalingensis, Pliohippus interpolatus, Protohippus
interpolatus, Pliohippus leidyanus, Pliohippus spectans,
Protohippus muelleri, Protohippus spectans.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia,
Perissodactyla, Equidae, Equinae, Equini.
Species: D. leidyanus
(type), D. coalingensis, D. interpolatus, D.
leardi, D. mexicanus, D. spectans.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Roughly about 1.5 meters tall at the
shoulder, but some variance between species.
Known locations: Across North America from Canada to
Mexico, but particularly well known from the USA.
Time period: Tortonian of the Miocene through to the
Calabrian of the Pleistocene.
Fossil representation: Altogether the remains of
well over a hundred individual Dinohippus are known.
Originally classed as a species of Pliohippus, Dinohippus seems to have been one of the most common horses in prehistoric North America. Dinohippus is considered to have been very close to the modern horse genus Equus, and like modern horses, Dinohippus lacked a dished face. Dinohippus was once considered to have been an exclusively monodactyl horse, but some fossil evidence has now revealed that a few individuals were tridactyl, possibly indicating that the monodactyl/tridactyl development was dependent more upon the species as opposed to a hard and fast rule about the genus. The legs and feet of Dinohippus are also formed in such a way that Dinohippus could stand for extended periods of time with only the bare minimum of energy expenditure. It is for these features that many people have considered Dinohippus to be the immediate ancestor to modern horses.
Further reading
- Miocene Equidae of the Texas gulf coastal plain. - University
of Texas, Bureau of Economic Geology - J. H. Quinn - 1955.
- Astrohippus and Dinohippus.
- Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology 4(2):273-283. - B. J. MacFadden - 1984.
- Estimating the body mass of extinct ungulates: a study on the use
of multiple regression. - Journal of Zoology - M. Mendoza,
C. M. Janis & P. palmqvist - 2006.
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