''Equus scotti'' (translated from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

as Scott's horse, (2003) ''Annotated Bibliography of Quaternary Vertebrates of Northern North America: With Radiocarbon Dates'', University of Toronto Press, 539 pages named after vertebrate paleontologist William Berryman Scott) is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

of '' Equus'', the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

that includes the

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 yea ...

Evolution

''E. scotti'' was native to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

The Paleobiology Database
/ref> and likely evolved from earlier, more zebra-like North American equids early in the

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 ...

epoch. (1999) The ''Equus (Plesippus) - Equus scotti'' transition in western North America, ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'' 19(3): 74-A The species may have crossed from North America to

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

over the

Bering land bridge Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of ...

during the Pleistocene. The species died out at the end of the last ice age in the large-scale Pleistocene extinction of

megafauna In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common thresho ...

. It was among the last of the native horse species in the Americas until the reintroduction of the horse approximately 10,000 years later, when

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...

s brought modern horses to North and South America around the 16th century.

Distribution

Paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

excavations have identified the locations of numerous places where ''E. scotti'' occurred. The species was named from

Rock Creek, Texas Rock Creek is an unincorporated community in Somervell County, Texas. It is located along Farm to Market Road 202 and is near the headwaters of Rock Creek, a tributary of the Brazos River. History Rock Creek was established in the 1850s and serve ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, where multiple skeletons were recovered. A closely related fossil find was made of ''Equus bautistensis'' in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

; this species appeared closely related, but of a slightly more primitive form than ''E. scotti''. (1921) ''Extinct Vertebrate Faunas of the Badlands of Bautista Creek and San Timoteo Cañon, Southern California'', University of California Press, 424 pages However, ''E. bautistensis'' was redefined as a junior synonym of ''E. scotti'' in 1998 by paleontologist E. Scott, (1998) ''Equus scotti'' from southern California, ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'' 18(3): 76-A who also assigned fossils from the

Anza-Borrego Desert Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (, '' AN-zə bə-RAY-goh'') is a California State Park located within the Colorado Desert of southern California, United States. The park takes its name from 18th century Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and ...

in California, tentatively interpreted to represent ''E. bautistensis'', to ''E. scotti''. (2006) Extinct horses and their relatives, ''Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert: the Last Seven Million Years'', ed. G.T. Jefferson and L. Lindsey, Sunbelt Publications, p. 253 - 271 One of the reported locations farthest south in the Americas is Pali Aike National Park in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. (2008) ''Pali Aike'', The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnha

/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Equus Scotti Pliocene horses Prehistoric mammals of North America Pleistocene horses Pliocene first appearances Pleistocene species extinctions Pleistocene mammals of North America Fossil taxa described in 1900 Equus (genus)

Evolution

Distribution

See also

References