The Yunnan horse (''Equus yunnanensis'') was an extinct horse that once roamed in

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 ...

East AsiaElewa, Ashraf M. T. (2008). Mass Extinction. Springer p. 172Colbert, EH. (1940)
Pleistocene mammals from the Ma Kai valley of northern Yunnan, China
''American Museum Novitates'', 1099Liu H, Yu Y, (1974), New materials of ''E. yunnanensis'' in Yanmou, Yunnan. On diagnosis of E. yunnanensis and phylogeny of Equus in Asia. Vertebrata PalAsiatica, 12 (2), 126–134. very likely as a grazer on open tracts of grassland. It was a small horse comparable in size to the modern

Przewalski's horse Przewalski's horse (, , (Пржевальский ), ) (''Equus ferus przewalskii'' or ''Equus przewalskii''), also called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse, is a rare and endangered horse originally native to the steppes of Ce ...

. It was first described by

Edwin H. Colbert Edwin Harris "Ned" Colbert (September 28, 1905 – November 15, 2001)O'Connor, Anahad ''The New York Times'', November 25, 2001. was a distinguished American vertebrate paleontologist and prolific researcher and author. Born in Clarinda, Iowa, he ...

from dental fossils collected by

Walter W. Granger Walter Willis Granger (November 7, 1872 – September 6, 1941) was an American vertebrate paleontologist who participated in important fossil explorations in the United States, Egypt, China and Mongolia. Early life and career Born in Midd ...

in the Ma Kai Valley in northern

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

ten miles south of the town of

Ma kai Ma Kai (; pinyin: ''Mǎ Kǎi''; born June 1946 in Shanghai) was one of the four Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China, Vice Premiers of China (Fourth-ranked). He was formerly a State Councilor and Secretary General of the State Council ...

Guangnan County Guangnan County (; Zhuang: ) is located in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. The seat of Guangnan, known today as Liancheng (), was the heart of the Gouding Kingdom () that lasted approximately 400 years, f ...

as part of the program of the Central Asiatic Expeditions of the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

in the winter of 1926–1927. They were the most numerous fossils of a single type of animal in the Ma Kai Valley deposits. Edwin H. Colbert thought it almost identical with an ''Equus'' collected by

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philos ...

in the Upper Irrawaddy sediments of

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

: "Indeed, judging by the evidence at hand, these two representations of the genus, one in Burma and one in Yunnan appear to be cospecific".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15911459 Pleistocene horses Pleistocene mammals of Asia Pleistocene extinctions Equus (genus) Fossil taxa described in 1940