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Extinct equids restored to scale. Left to right: Mesohippus, Neohipparion, Eohippus, Equus scotti and Hypohippus. Wild horses have been known since prehistory from central Asia to Europe, with domestic horses and other equids being distributed more widely in the Old World, but no horses or equids of any type were found in the New World when European explorers reached the Americas.
Equidae (commonly known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. The family evolved more than 50 million years ago, in the Eocene epoch, from a small, multi-toed ungulate into larger, single-toed animals.
Equinae is a subfamily of the family Equidae, known from the Hemingfordian stage of the Early Miocene (16 million years ago) onwards. [1] [2] They originated in North America, before dispersing to every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
The word equus is Latin for "horse" [4] and is cognate with the Greek ἵππος (hippos, "horse") [5] and Mycenaean Greek i-qo /ikkʷos/, the earliest attested variant of the Greek word, written in Linear B syllabic script. [6] Compare the alternative development of the Proto-Greek labiovelar in Ionic ἴκκος (ikkos). [5] [7]
The height of horses is measured at the highest point of the withers, where the neck meets the back. [23] This point is used because it is a stable point of the anatomy, unlike the head or neck, which move up and down in relation to the body of the horse.
Hack, a basic riding horse, particularly in the UK, also includes Show hack horses used in competition. Heavy warmblood, heavy carriage and riding horses, predecessors to the modern warmbloods, several old-style breeds still in existence today. Hunter, a type of jumping horse, either a show hunter or a field hunter
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