''Equus sivalensis'' is an extinct

equid Equidae (sometimes known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. All extant species are in the genus '' Equus'', w ...

, discovered in the

Siwalik The Sivalik Hills, also known as the Shivalik Hills and Churia Hills, are a mountain range of the outer Himalayas that stretches over about from the Indus River eastwards close to the Brahmaputra River, spanning the northern parts of the Indian ...

hills. Remains date to 2.6 million years ago, and it is assumed that it was extinct during the last ice age, between 75,000 and 10,000 years ago, as part of the

late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction The Quaternary period (from 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present) has seen the extinctions of numerous predominantly megafaunal species, which have resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity and the extinction of key ecolog ...

. Remains have been found in middle to late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

locations in the Siwaliks and in

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

, and recently, as a "Great Indian horse" in Andhra Pradesh, Andhra, dated to ca. 75,000 BP.

References

* B.J. MacFadden, ''Fossil Horses'', 1992, 2nd ed. 2003 * Hugh Falconer, Falconer H. and Proby Cautley, Cautley, ''Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis, Being the Fossil Zoology of the Siwalik Highlands in the North of India'', 1849, London.

External links

*Two PDF-files with information on E. sivalensis
Animal remains (PDF)Fossil equids (PDF)
*M. Witzel, Pleistocene horses Equus (genus) Pleistocene mammals of Asia {{paleo-oddtoedungulate-stub