Eohippus - Facts and Figures. Name: Eohippus (Greek for . Eohippus, aka Hyracotherium, is a good case study: this prehistoric horse was first described by the famous 1. Richard Owen, who mistook it for an ancestor of the hyrax (hence the name he bestowed on it in 1. Greek for . A few decades later, another eminent paleontologist, Othniel C. Marsh, gave a similar skeleton discovered in North America the more memorable name Eohippus (. Today, most paleontologists classify Hyracotherium as a . ![]() Its close cousin Eohippus, on the other hand, seems to deserve a place more firmly in the equid than the palaeothere family tree, though of course this is still up for debate! Whatever you choose to call it, Eohippus was clearly at least partly ancestral to all modern- day horses, as well as to the numerous species of prehistoric horse (like Epihippus and Merychippus) that roamed the North American and Eurasian plains of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods. As with many such evolutionary precursors, Eohippus didn't look much like a horse, with its slender, deerlike, 5. Eohippus munched on low- lying leaves rather than grass. Information about the primitive horse Hyracotherium (also previously known as Eohippus) and other prehistoric creatures. Information about the horse Hipparion and other prehistoric creatures. ![]() ![]() Some 10 million years ago, up to a dozen species of horses roamed the Great Plains of North America. These relatives of the modern horse came in many. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
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