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Concept
Hyracotherium
Summary
Hyracotherium (ˌhaɪrəkoʊˈθɪəriəm,_-kə- ; "hyrax-like beast") is an extinct genus of very small (about 60 cm in length) perissodactyl ungulates that was found in the London Clay formation. This small, fox-sized animal is (for some scientists) considered to be the earliest known member of Equidae before the type species, H. leporinum, was reclassified as a palaeothere, a perissodactyl family basal to both horses and brontotheres. The remaining species are now thought to belong to different genera, such as Eohippus, which had previously been synonymised with Hyracotherium.
Hyracotherium averaged 78 cm (2.5 feet) in length and weighed about 9 kg (20 pounds). It had a short face with eye sockets in the middle and a short diastema (the space between the front teeth and the cheek teeth). The skull was long, having 44 low-crowned teeth. Although it had low-crowned teeth, the beginnings of the characteristic horse-like ridges on the molars can be seen. Hyracotherium is believed to have been a browsing herbivore that ate primarily soft leaves as well as some fruits and nuts and plant shoots.
The first fossil identified as being of this genus, holotype specimen BMNH M16336, was found in the cliffs of Studd Hill near Herne Bay, Kent, and described by the paleontologist Richard Owen in a paper read to the Geological Society of London on 18 December 1839 as a "small mutilated cranium about the size of that of a hare". He identified it as belonging to an extinct order of Pachydermata, with teeth resembling those of the Chaeropotamus and the general form of the skull "partaking of a character intermediate between that of the hog and the hyrax, though the large size of the eye must have given to the physiognomy of the living animal a resemblance to that of the Rodentia." Referring to this resemblance to the hyrax, Owen proposed the genus name Hyracotherium for this new genus.
Official source
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