Anchitherium (meaning near beast) was a fossil horse with a three-toed hoof.
| Anchitherium Temporal range: [1]
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| Anchitherium aurelianense, Hypohippus equinus, Merychippus sejunctus, and M. sphenodus fossils in Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Perissodactyla |
| Family: | Equidae |
| Subfamily: | †Anchitheriinae |
| Genus: | †Anchitherium von Meyer, 1844 |
| Type species | |
| Anchitherium ezquerrae | |
| Species[1][2][3][4] | |
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Anchitherium was a browsing (leaf eating) horse that originated in the early Miocene of North America and subsequently dispersed to Europe and Asia,[3][4] where it gave rise to the larger bodied genus Sinohippus.[1] It was around 60 centimetres (6.0 hands) high at the shoulder, and probably represented a side-branch of horse evolution that left no modern descendants.[5]
References
edit- ^ a b c Salesa, M.J., Sánchez, I.M., and Morales, J. 2004. Presence of the Asian horse Sinohippus in the Miocene of Europe. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 49(2):189-196.
- ^ Sánchez, I.M., Salesa, M.J., and Morales, J. 1998. Revisión sistemática del género Anchitherium Meyer, 1834 (Equidae; Perissodactyla) en España. Estudios Geológicos, 55(1-2):1-37
- ^ a b Ye, J.; W.-Y. Wu; J. Meng (2005). "Anchitherium (Perissodactyla, Mammalia) from the Halamagai Formation of Northern Junggar Basin, Xinjiang". Vertebrata PalAsiatica. 43 (2): 100–109. Archived from the original on 2016-10-12.(in Chinese with English summary).
- ^ a b MacFadden, B.J. 2001. Three-toed browsing horse Anchitherium clarencei from the early Miocene (Hemingfordian) Thomas Farm, Florida. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History, 43(3):79-109.
- ^ Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 274. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.
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