Palaeoecology and evololution of three-toed horses (hipparion)

Hipparione horses are one of the most important elements of the old world land mammal fauna in the younger parts of earth histoy (Neogene). Often fossil remains of these horses make up more than 50% of the recovered fossil record. The old world hipparions decent from a north American member of the genus Cormohipparion, that still has to be ascertained. Immediately after their first appearance of hipparions in Eurasia about 11 million years ago (hipparion datum) hipparions underwent an extensive old world radiation. This resulted in a variety of evolutionary lineages, the chronological and geographical distribution of which reached to the middle pleistocene of China and the jounger pleistocene of Africa. Similar to the Bovidae (cow like cloven-hoofed animals) today, hipparionine horses in the Miocene developed a large range of ecological adaptations. That is why hipparions reached a biodiversity and dynamics in evolutionary transformation similar to the ruminants today.

Including the temporal dimension of evolutionary transformation allows the old world hipparions to be employed as a model of pattern formation in evolutionary change of terrestrial herbivorous mammals. Our methodology is based on the combination of functional morphological, biogeographical, and taxonomical approaches. These approaches are employed in a multi disciplinary research compound.

Co-operation with Prof. Raymond Bernor (Howard University Washington), funding: National Science Foundation (NSF)

RHOI Revealing Hominid Origins Initiative