Equus dalianensis

Equus dalianensis Temporal range: Late Pleistocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	Equidae
Genus:	Equus
Species:	†E. dalianensis
Binomial name
†Equus dalianensis Xinxue, Yufeng, Qinqi & Yi, 1985

Equus dalianensis is an extinct species of horse that lived in northern China during the Late Pleistocene epoch. This was a relatively large species of horse, being larger than both the extant Equus przewalskii and Equus hermious . ^[1]

It is named after Dalian a city located in Liaoning province, where remains of the species were first found. ^{[2] [3]}

Evolutionary history

Equus dalianensis is a true cabaline horse closely related to living domestic and wild horses, with a similar skeletal morphology to other true horses. ^[4] It belonged to a distinctive mitochondrial genome lineage that is estimated to have diverged from those of living horses over 800,000 years ago, shortly after the divergence between North American and Old World horses. Some prehistoric Late Pleistocene horse remains assigned to Przewalski's horse also belong to this lineage, either indicating gene flow between the two species, or that these remains had been misassigned. ^[1]

The exact evolutionary origins and history of this species is unclear despite the abundance of material for E. dalianensis. During the late Pleistocene extinctions and the warming of the Holocene epoch, Equus dalianensis became extinct while the range of Equus przewalskii shrank. The genetic diversity of the species seems to have been relatively low prior to its extinction. ^[1]

References

1. Yuan, Junxia; Sheng, Guilian; Preick, Michaela; Sun, Boyang; Hou, Xindong; Chen, Shungang; Taron, Ulrike Helene; Barlow, Axel; Wang, Linying; Hu, Jiaming; Deng, Tao; Lai, Xulong; Hofreiter, Michael (2020-12-15). "Mitochondrial genomes of Late Pleistocene caballine horses from China belong to a separate clade" . Quaternary Science Reviews. 250 106691. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106691. ISSN   0277-3791.
2. Zhou S XX, Yf XQQ, Li Y. 1985. Note on a new late Pleistocene Equus from Dalian. Vert PalAsiat. 23(1):69–76.
3. "Horses were running between Asia, North America 50,000 years ago: study". South China Morning Post. 2025-05-16. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
4. Cirilli, Omar; Machado, Helena; Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin; Barrón-Ortiz, Christina I.; Davis, Edward; Jass, Christopher N.; Jukar, Advait M.; Landry, Zoe; Marín-Leyva, Alejandro H.; Pandolfi, Luca; Pushkina, Diana; Rook, Lorenzo; Saarinen, Juha; Scott, Eric; Semprebon, Gina (2022-08-24). "Evolution of the Family Equidae, Subfamily Equinae, in North, Central and South America, Eurasia and Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene". Biology. 11 (9): 1258. doi: 10.3390/biology11091258 . ISSN   2079-7737. Archived from the original on 2025-11-13.