Ice age fossils from Yukon help identify new horse genus

Some ancient horse fossils from the Yukon's Klondike goldfields have helped researchers identify a previously unknown genus of stilt-legged horsesthat went extinct at the end of the last ice age, about 17,000 years ago.

The researchers say their discovery alters the known family tree of North American horses, by revealing the new genusHaringtonhippusfrancisci as an evolutionary dead-end, unrelated to any modern equine species.

Stilt-legged horses once roamed North America and were previously thought to be related to modern horses, donkeys, and zebras.

But according to a study published by the online journal eLife, DNA analysis of bones from Yukon, Nevada and Wyoming promptedresearchers to rethink the horse family tree.

"The evolutionary distance between the extinct stilt-legged horses and all living horses took us by surprise, but it presented us with an exciting opportunity to name a new genus of horse," said senior study author Beth Shapiro, in a statement. Shapiro is a researcher from the University of California.

The scientists chose to name the genus after paleontologist Richard Harington, of the Canadian Museum of Nature. Haringtonwas a frequent visitor to the Klondike region from the 1960s to the 1980s, searching for fossils and talking to placer miners about things they found.

In a statement, Haringtonsaid he was "delighted" to have his name attached to the extinct genus.

He said he'd been curious for years about the identity of a horse bone he found in the Klondike, and another fromLost Chicken Creek in Alaska. The new research shows they belong to his namesake genus, he said.

• Klondike placer miner honoured for paleontological finds

• Fossils from cat with 'steak knife' fangs, found in Yukon, give researchers something to chew on