Mesohippus

Mesohippus is an extinct genus of early horse. It lived 37 to 32 million years ago in the Early Oligocene. Like many fossil horses, Mesohippus was common in North America. Its shoulder height is estimated at 60 cm.

Mesohippus

David Starner · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AnchitheriinaePBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Equidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Equidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 5.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 37 Mya to 31.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 39.7 Mya to 29.5 Mya.

Eocene — about 57 of 86 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 29 of 86 occurrencesOligocene40–39 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 3 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 6 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 6 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 6 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 6 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 6 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 6 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 6 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 5 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 5 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 5 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 5 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 5 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 5 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 3 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37 Mya31.8 Mya40.2 Mya29 Mya

86 occurrences of Mesohippus on record, most of them in the Eocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

86 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

15 formations

Brule — 42.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 43.90°N, 102.40°WBrule — 43.30°N, 102.50°WBrule — 46.90°N, 102.80°WBrule — 43.20°N, 103.20°WBrule — 42.00°N, 104.20°WBrule — 43.85°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.60°N, 102.45°WChadron — 43.60°N, 102.45°WChadron — 42.80°N, 103.10°WChadron — 45.47°N, 112.62°WChadron — 46.10°N, 103.30°WChadron — 43.30°N, 102.50°WChadron — 42.00°N, 104.20°WCypress Hills — 49.57°N, 109.88°WCypress Hills — 49.80°N, 109.00°WCypress Hills — 49.70°N, 109.00°WCypress Hills — 49.60°N, 108.80°WChambers Tuff — 29.90°N, 104.20°WRenova — 45.00°N, 112.80°WRenova — 45.20°N, 112.00°WRenova — 46.00°N, 112.00°WRenova — 45.90°N, 112.25°WWhite River — 43.20°N, 108.20°WWhite River — 40.80°N, 103.10°WWhite River — 40.97°N, 106.22°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.28°WJohn Day — 44.90°N, 120.20°WJohn Day — 44.60°N, 119.62°WHogeye Tuff — 31.50°N, 105.20°WPreitos — 29.80°N, 104.50°WPomerado — 32.85°N, 117.03°WSage Creek — 45.00°N, 112.80°WCook Ranch — 45.00°N, 112.80°WClimbing Arrow — 45.93°N, 111.62°WDunbar Creek — 45.70°N, 111.00°W

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The named rock units Mesohippus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mesohippus and its relatives

Eocene

Where Mesohippus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

485 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 79 sites for Mesohippus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

42 references

Each of the 86 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 30 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Mesohippus

Credit
David Starner
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Mesohippus sp. · uf:uf:200612

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAnchitheriinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1875