Equus scotti

Taxobox
name = "Equus scotti"
status = Fossil

---

image_width = 250px
image_caption = A mounted skeleton of "Equus scotti" at the AMNH, constructed out of two skeletons.
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Perissodactyla
familia = Equidae
genus = "Equus"
species = †"E. scotti"
binomial = †"Equus scotti"
binomial_authority = Gidley, 1900
synonyms =†"Equus bautistensis"

"Equus scotti" (translated from Latin as "Scott's horse") is an extinct horse species that was native to North America. It was descended from Old World horses who are believed to have crossed over to North America over the Bering land bridge several million years ago. The species died out at the end of the last ice age in the large-scale Pleistocene extinction of megafauna. [http://horsecare.stablemade.com/articles2/horse_origins.htm]

It was the last of the native horse species in North America. Approximately 10,000 years later, beginning in the late 1400s with European colonization of the Americas, horses returned to the western hemisphere, starting with assorted Iberian horses from Spain, many of which later escaped to the wild and became the ancestors of today's many feral horses, most notably the Mustang.

ee also

*Evolution of the Horse

References

External links

* [http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?action=checkTaxonInfo&taxon_no=46258 The Paleobiology Database]