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Horses are odd-toed ungulate mammals.
It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae.
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Horse
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Odd-toed ungulate
Members of the order Perissodactyla, otherwise known as odd-toed ungulates, are mammals characterized by an odd number of toes and by hindgut fermentation with somewhat simple stomachs. Perissodactyla comes from the Ancient Greek περισσός ("perissós", “uneven”) + δάκτυλος ("dáktulos", “a finger, toe”). Unlike the even-toed ungulates, they digest plant cellulose in their intestines rather than in one or more stomach chambers. The order includes three extant families: Equidae (horses, asses, and zebras), Rhinocerotidae (rhinoceroses), and Tapiridae (tapirs), with a total of about 17 species. Despite their very different appearances, they were recognized as related families in the 19th century by the zoologist Richard Owen, who also coined the order name.
Even-toed ungulate
The even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla, ) are ungulates (hoofed animals) whose weight is borne equally by the third and fourth toes. By contrast, odd-toed ungulates, such as horses, bear their weight primarily on their third toes. The aquatic cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) evolved from within even-toed ungulates, so modern taxonomic classification sometimes combines the Artiodactyla and Cetacea into the Cetartiodactyla. Excluding whales, the roughly 220 artiodactyl species include pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses, cetaceans, camels, llamas, alpacas, mouse deer, deer, giraffes, antelopes, sheep, goats, and cattle, many of which are of great dietary, economic, and cultural importance to humans.
Ungulate
Ungulates (pronounced ) are any members of a diverse group of primarily large mammals that includes odd-toed ungulates such as horses and rhinoceroses, and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, camels, deer, and hippopotamuses. Most terrestrial ungulates use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. The term means, roughly, "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal". As a descriptive term, "ungulate" normally excludes cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), as they do not possess most of the typical morphological characteristics of ungulates, but recent discoveries indicate that they are descended from early artiodactyls.
List of Chinese terrestrial ungulates
This is a list of Chinese terrestrial ungulates, including both extinct and extant types. Ungulates are mammals which are endothermic amniote animals distinguished from reptiles and birds by the possession of hair, three middle ear bones, mammary glands, and a neocortex (a region of the brain). The mammalian brain regulates body temperature and the circulatory system, including the four-chambered heart. The mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the rorquals and some other whales, as well as some of the most intelligent, such as elephants, some primates and some cetaceans. The basic body type is a four-legged land-borne animal, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in the trees, or on two legs.
Horse
The horse ("Equus ferus caballus") is one of two extant subspecies of "Equus ferus". It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, "Eohippus", into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies "caballus" are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse.
Cloven hoof
A cloven hoof, cleft hoof, divided hoof or split hoof is a hoof split into two toes. This is found on members of the mammalian order "Artiodactyla". Examples of mammals that possess this type of hoof are cattle, deer, antelopes, gazelles, goats, and sheep. In folklore and popular culture, a cloven hoof has long been associated with the Devil. The two digits of cloven hoofed animals are homologous to the third and fourth fingers of the hand. They are called claws and are named for their relative location on the foot: the outer, or lateral, claw and the inner, or medial claw. The space between the two claws is called the interdigital cleft; the area of skin is called the interdigital skin.
Litopterna
Litopterna (from "smooth heel") is an extinct order of fossil hoofed mammals (ungulates) from the Cenozoic period that displayed toe reduction – three-toed forms developed; there was even a one-toed horselike form. This order, known only from South America and Antarctica, was common and varied in early faunas and persisted, in decreasing variety, into the Pleistocene. Early forms are near the condylarths, to such an extent that the litopterns might be considered merely as surviving and diversely specialized condylarths. They are suspected of being descended from South American condylarths, and therefore to have the same source as the latter.