Equus sivalensis is an extinct equid

Equus (genus)

Equus is a genus of animals in the family Equidae that includes horses, donkeys, and zebras. Within Equidae, Equus is the only extant genus. Like Equidae more broadly, Equus has numerous extinct species known only from fossils. This article deals primarily with the extant species.The term equine...

, discovered in the Siwalik hills of Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

. Remains date to 2.6 million years ago, and it is assumed that it was extinct during the last Ice Age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

, between 75,000 and 10,000 years ago, as part of the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction. Remains have been found in middle to late Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 locations in the Siwaliks and in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

, and recently, as a "Great Indian horse" in Andhra, dated to ca. 75,000 BP.

External links

• Two PDF-files with information on E. sivalensis: Animal remains (PDF), Fossil equids (PDF)
• M. Witzel, Harappan horse myths and the sciences