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Late Miocene three-toed horse Protohippus (Mammalia, Equidae) from southern Alabama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

Bruce J. Macfadden  and
James L. Dobie
Bruce J. Macfadden
Affiliation:
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611-7800 (bmacfadd@flmnh.ufl.edu)
James L. Dobie
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology and Wildlife Science, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-5414
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Abstract

Dental and postcranial remains of a donkey-sized, three-toed, primitive horse were collected from the “Undifferentiated Miocene” Ecor Rouge Sand (which underlies the widespread Citronelle Formation) from the Mauvilla site in southern Alabama. These fossils probably pertain to a single individual of Protohippus gidleyi Hulbert, 1988. This represents an exceedingly rare occurrence of a late Tertiary land mammal from the central Gulf Coastal Plain and allows comparisons with better-known, contemporaneous land-mammal assemblages from Florida. Based on the known biochronology of Protohippus gidleyi from other localities, and the stratigraphic position of the Mauvilla record, the age of: 1) the Ecor Rouge Sand is late Miocene (latest Clarendonian to early Hemphillian landmammal “age”), between 9.0 to 6.5 Ma; and 2) the overlying Citronelle Formation near its type locality in southern Alabama is therefore late Miocene or younger.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 149 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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