The South American paleo-horses

For a long time the South American fauna included a certain type of horses that disappeared about 8,000 years ago. That extinction was surely related to the appearance of the first human communities that were migrating to the continent, probably from the north.

I transcribe a description of these first horses that, although they were extinguished, were replaced, many years later by other horses (belonging to a similar but somewhat different species) that had developed and had been domesticated in Eurasia.

The Hippidion

"There was in South America a predecessor of the current horse, although similar in size to that of the African zebra, whose first fossil was discovered by Charles Darwin. The Paleo Group dedicated to the late Cenozoic paleontology in the Argentine Pampas region, publishes a very interesting study on the background of the horse in South America. The document mentions that the Hippidion Principale was an indigenous mammal that would have reached South America in the early Pleistocene.

Hippidion (meaning 'little horse') is an extinct genus of horse endemic to South America. He lived during the late Pliocene until the Pleistocene, between 2 million years and 8000 years ago. All the different species of the genus Hippidion, were approximately the size of a current pony.

Numerous remains of these ancient equidae have been found in various locations such as in the province of Santa Cruz (Argentina) and in the Cueva del Milodon (Chile).

Hippidion is considered a descendant of Pliohippus, a horse that emigrated to South America about 2.5 million years ago. DNA analysis shows him as an ancestor of the evolutionary line of the current horse, having a resemblance to donkeys. Evidence of the delicate structure of the nasal bones of the genus suggests that the Hippidion evolved isolated from other horse species in North America.

Hippidion saldiasi and other South American horses became extinct about 8000 years ago. "

The extinction of the American paleocaballos by human influence is practically certain, in the same way that other megamanifers of the South American Pleistocene were extinguished, such as glyptodon, toxodon, milodon and megatery at the same time. There may have been other factors that influenced their disappearance but we believe that the American Paleocaorses had not developed instincts that would protect them from human hunters.

Ref: http://paleoindio.blogspot.com/2013/04/el-caballo-americano.html