- Order:
- Duration: 5:48
- Published: 09 Jul 2008
- Uploaded: 29 Jul 2011
- Author: euyinTube
Equidae (sometimes known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, donkeys, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. All extant species are in the genus Equus. Equidae belongs to the order Perissodactyla, which includes the extant tapirs and rhinoceros, and still more fossils.
The term equid refers to any member of this family, including any equine.
The family became relatively diverse during the Miocene, with many new species appearing. By this time, equids were more truly horse-like, having developed the typical body shape of the modern animals. Many of these species bore the main weight of their bodies on their central, third, toe, with the others becoming reduced, and barely touching the ground, if at all. The sole surviving genus, Equus, had evolved by the early Pleistocene, and spread rapidly through the world.
Category:Equidae Category:Mammal families
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.