Many know that the horse was introduced to the American continent by Europeans at the beginning of the 16th century, but few know that the equine actually returned, since thousands of years before, it had existed under the name of the Mexican horse (Equus mexicanus).
What was the Mexican horse like?
It is estimated that it weighed between 400 and 600 kilograms, had a height between 1.5 and 1.8 meters, very robust constitution, especially in the legs; and her face was thin and long.
In addition, it was a migratory animal in search of fresh pastures; This is known from the remains found in areas that thousands of years ago were grasslands, scrublands, and forests. However, it was also a beast that was highly resistant to drought and intense climatic changes.
Fullness and extinction of this species
According to fossil discoveries, in the Pleistocene, when Homo sapiens appeared on the continent, this horse was one of four or five species of equids (horses, donkeys, and zebras) that lived from the southern United States to central Mexico. .
In fact, scholars determined that it lived in the late Pleistocene, since the oldest fossils date back 500,000 years; and it became extinct, like many other mammals, about 9,000 years ago, as a consequence of the so-called ice age, while homo sapiens expanded throughout the planet.
Likewise, in San Luis Potosí, Jalisco, the State of Mexico, the country’s capital, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla and recently in Chiapas, jaws, teeth, phalanges and other bones of this extinct animal have been discovered.
But before its disappearance, the equine lived for thousands of years with mammoths, mastodons, deer, giant sloths and glyptodonts. You imagine?