Equus, Hippidion Shared Common Ancestors

The Hippidion genus descended from a common ancestor of our modern-day horses, but didn’t survive into our current world.
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The equids we know today include horses, Przewalksi’s horses, ponies, donkeys, and zebras—all belonging to the genus Equus. But another kind of equid used to roam in South America not so long ago. The stocky, long-nosed Hippidion descended from a common ancestor of our modern-day horses, but unlike Equus, the Hippidion genus didn’t survive into our current world.

While researchers have known for more than a century that Hippidions lived in South America, they haven’t always agreed on where they came from or how they evolved as a separate genus. In fact, recent study results have even suggested that Hippidion might have descended at first as part of the Equus genus and remained “nested” within that genus for dozens of millennia, without really being a genus of its own. That would have made them part of the evolutionary process that led to modern horses—making them much closer ancestors to our current breeds.

But recent research using the latest mitochondrial genome sequencing techniques has just disproved that theory. Hippidion broke off from Equus and formed its own distinct genus somewhere between 5.6 to 6.5 million years ago, said Professor Ludovic Orlando, PhD, head of the Paleomix Group and Curator of the Cryobank Centre for GeoGenetics in the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen.

In fact, the lineage leading to Hippidion actually broke off from that leading to Equus while the equids were still in North America, he said. When the Panamanian Isthmus developed about 3.5 million years ago, the Hippidion equids crossed over it into South America, where they stayed until they died out 10,000 years ago

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Passionate about horses and science from the time she was riding her first Shetland Pony in Texas, Christa Lesté-Lasserre writes about scientific research that contributes to a better understanding of all equids. After undergrad studies in science, journalism, and literature, she received a master’s degree in creative writing. Now based in France, she aims to present the most fascinating aspect of equine science: the story it creates. Follow Lesté-Lasserre on Twitter @christalestelas.

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