Amerhippus

Amerhippus is an extinct subgenus of Equus which includes several species of horses that lived in South America. They were one of two groups of equines in South America alongside Hippidion.[2] Fossils have been recovered from the Tarija Formation of Bolivia, the Serranía del Perijá in Venezuela, the Chiu-Chiu Formation of Chile, the Sabana Formation of the Bogotá savanna in Colombia,[3] and from various locations in Ecuador.[4] The subgenus lived from 2.588 to 0.012 Mya. It measured roughly 1.5 m (4.9 ft) tall and weighed approximately 400 kg (880 lb). While they have formerly been referred to as belonging to 5 separate species, this has been revised down into three,[5] and more recently a single, morphologically variable species Equus neogeus.[6][7] Equus first appeared in South America during the late Early Pleistocene around 1 Ma.[2] A 2008 study of mitochondrial DNA fragments of a specimen of E. neogeus found it to be nested within mitochondrial lineages of E. caballus.[8] A close relationship to caballine horses was also supported by a 2019 morphological analysis study.[9]

Amerhippus Temporal range: Pleistocene (Ensenadan-Lujanian) ~1–0.012 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Skull of Amerhippus sp.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	Equidae
Genus:	Equus
Subgenus:	†Amerhippus Hoffstetter, 1950
Type species
†Equus andium Branco, 1883
Species
†Equus (Amerhippus) andium †Equus (Amerhippus) insulatus †Equus (Amerhippus) lasallei †Equus (Amerhippus) neogeus[1] †Equus (Amerhippus) santaeelenae