Horse But Maybe Not Equus

[Shellseeker]

I find many Equus fossil teeth. This one seems different. Appreciate any pointers to occusal identification charts and/or confirmation one way or another. Thanks SS

[Cris]

It personally looks like Equus to me, just split down the middle. I would be interested in any good ID guides also. Does anybody who owns The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida know how detailed Hulbert gets on horses in the book?

[siteseer]

Cris,

Yes, Hulbert shows a few sharp drawings of dentitions of the more common horses and isolated teeth of the rarer species. That's a great book (you should have asked Santa for that). He explains a lot but does not provide side-by-side comparisons for separating one genus from another or one species from another. I have no trouble seeing differences that separate shark species but horse teeth baffle me.

I know Equus is the largest genus - body size and teeth - but I can't separate an early Equus tooth from a more modern one. I can distinguish Hyracotherium from Mesohippus. The later browing horses resemble unusually-large Mesohippus teeth from I don't know the differences between the Bone Valley hipparion-type horses. I do know that Dinohippus was the ancestor of Equus and that their teeth can look a lot like (and be about the same size as) Equus but are more curved.

Actually, I have a friend who is a mammal collector with a particular interest in ungulates. He once gave me a nice set of horse teeth (an upper and lower of various species). I should try to find that and then ask him to go over the teeth with me even if over the phone. He identified the teeth I found in the phosphate mines (a trip just months before collecting was no longer allowed) and some teeth I bought in Tucson this year.

Yes, that looks like an Equus split down the middle to me too.

Jess

P.S. The Hulbert book for sale at the Florida Museum of Natural History and even at a used bookstore (O'Brisky) in Micanopy. I was in the Gainesville area just last week.

About ten years ago, I was going to help put together a fossil horse tooth ID guide with my friend providing the expertise and some of the specimens, another friend adding other specimens and funding it, and me writing it. The project got delayed, though I did start writing it, but it was cancelled just this year.

It personally looks like Equus to me, just split down the middle. I would be interested in any good ID guides also. Does anybody who owns The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida know how detailed Hulbert gets on horses in the book?

Edited December 25, 2012 by siteseer