Eohippus (Hyracotherium)
Eohippus (meaning "dawn horse") was the earliest-known horse - it was the size of a tiny dog. Another name for this genus is Hyracotherium (meaning "mole beast").
Eohippus
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
see horse.
More on Eohippus
Horse - hoofed, herbivorous mammal now represented by a single extant genus, Equus.
EOHIPPUS
Eohippus was a tiny horse that lived 50 million years ago.
HORSE
Horses are very fast runners. Primitive horses were very small.
The first horse, Hyracotherium (= Eohippus), is known from the early Eocene and appears to have been derived from a condylarth. It was a small animal with relatively simple quadrate teeth, a modestly enlarged third metacarpal, and digitigrade stance.
This animal, also small, a forest dweller and eater of leaves, we call Eohippus (or dawn horse).
Some 30 million years after the appearance of Eohippus a new horse-like animal appeared.
The earliest type of horse, the hyracotherium or Eohippus , lived in some 45 to 50 million years ago, during the EOCENE EPOCH . The size varied from 10 to 20 in. high ; they had four toes on each foot and three toes on each hind foot.
 See also: Zebra, Tapir, Rhinoceros, Quagga, Rhino
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