''Hypohippus'' (Greek: "under" (hypos), "horse" (hippos)) is an extinct genus of three-toed

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

, which lived 17–11 million years ago. It was the largest anchitherine equid about the size of a modern domestic horse, at and long. It was a long-necked, high-shouldered browser with sub-hypsodont, lophodont (

rhino A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

-like) dentition, that fed on the tough vegetation of forest understory and shrubs. Its deep preorbital fossae and retraction of the nasal notch hint at the presence of a long, muscular and prehensile upper lip that would aid during selective browsing. Overall its ecology would have been more comparable to modern okapi than to

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...

horses. Fossils of it have been found in

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, and

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

. Image:Hypohippus.jpg, 20th century restoration by Heinrich Harder. Image:Hypohippus osborni Wikipedia Juandertal.jpg, Life restoration showing a prominent, prehensile upper lip.

References

Miocene horses Miocene odd-toed ungulates Prehistoric placental genera Miocene mammals of North America Barstovian Clarendonian Fossil taxa described in 1858 Taxa named by Joseph Leidy {{paleo-oddtoedungulate-stub