Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Perissodactyla > Equidae > Orohippus

Orohippus

Wikipedia Abstract

Orohippus (Gr., "mountain horse") is an extinct equid that lived in the Eocene (about 50 million years ago). It is believed to have evolved from equids such as Eohippus, as the earliest evidence for Orohippus appears about 2 million years after the first appearance of Eohippus. The anatomical differences between the two are slight: they were the same size, but Orohippus had a slimmer body, a more elongated head, slimmer forelimbs and longer hind legs, all of which are characteristics of a good jumper. The upper premolars of Orohippus are more molariform (flat-surfaced) than in Eohippus, giving Orohippus more teeth for grinding, and the crests on the teeth are more pronounced, indicating that Orohippus probably fed on tougher plants. The outer toes of Eohippus are no longer present in Orohi
View Wikipedia Record: Orohippus

Species

External References

Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0