Equus dalianensis
Extinct species of horse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Equus dalianensis is an extinct species of horse that lived in northern China during the Late Pleistocene epoch. This was a relatively large species of horse, being larger than both the extant Equus przewalskii and Equus hermious.[1]
| Equus dalianensis Temporal range: Late Pleistocene | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Perissodactyla |
| Family: | Equidae |
| Genus: | Equus |
| Species: | †E. dalianensis |
| Binomial name | |
| †Equus dalianensis Xinxue, Yufeng, Qinqi & Yi, 1985 | |
It is named after Dalian a city located in Liaoning province, where remains of the species were first found.[2][3]
Evolutionary history
Equus dalianensis is a true cabaline horse closely related to living domestic and wild horses, with a similar skeletal morphology to other true horses.[4] It belonged to a distinctive mitochondrial genome lineage that is estimated to have diverged from those of living horses over 800,000 years ago, shortly after the divergence between North American and Old World horses. Some prehistoric Late Pleistocene horse remains assigned to Przewalski's horse also belong to this lineage, either indicating gene flow between the two species, or that these remains had been misassigned.[1]
The exact evolutionary origins and history of this species is unclear despite the abundance of material for E. dalianensis. During the late Pleistocene extinctions and the warming of the Holocene epoch, Equus dalianensis became extinct while the range of Equus przewalskii shrank. The genetic diversity of the species seems to have been relatively low prior to its extinction.[1]