[Adam Khor]

It's called a "Probodiscipparion", and its described as being "large to giant sized" and having a similar nose structure to a tapir. A trunked horse?
It is also said to have lived besides water, like a tapir. A water horse??

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-...e-longdan.html

[Galvasean]

What an amazing creature! Any idea what they mean by 'large to giant' in terms of size?
Also, I'm surprised that it's in the Hipparion genus. I would have imagined it would have been an entirely new genus.

[Adam Khor]

Originally Posted by Galvasean

What an amazing creature! Any idea what they mean by 'large to giant' in terms of size?
Also, I'm surprised that it's in the Hipparion genus. I would have imagined it would have been an entirely new genus.

Me too...

I don´t know what large to giant means in this case... I believe the largest prehistoric horses known are on the higher end of modern day horse size, and many prehistoric horses were smaller, so maybe "giant" just means "larger than your average prehistoric horse"... But I still hope this is eventually announced as the largest horse evah if only because it's so damned cool

[Galvasean]

Horses are a strange one. They've (as far as we know) never had a branch that evolved toward 'gigantism'. Practically every animal family does at some point.

[Adam Khor]

Originally Posted by Galvasean

Horses are a strange one. They've (as far as we know) never had a branch that evolved toward 'gigantism'. Practically every animal family does at some point.

Eqqus giganteus and Eqqus capensis were quite big, actually... up to 2 meters tall at the shoulder and about as heavy as some of the largest modern day horses. Plus there's tons of horse fossils that haven´t been properly described/announced and may be as large or larger than these two.