Fossils of 4.4-Million-Year-Old Horse Found

Scientists poking around Ethiopia's fossil-rich badlands say they have discovered the first pieces of an extinct species of horse that was about the size of a small zebra and lived about 4.4 million years ago.

Fossilized traces of the horse, which was named Eurygnathohippus woldegabrieli, were uncovered in the archaeologically rich sites of Aramis and Gona in Ethiopia's Middle Awash valley.

"Among the many fossils we found are the two ends of the foreleg bone — the canon — brilliant white and well preserved in the red-tinted earth," study researcher Scott Simpson, of Case Western Reserve's School of Medicine, said of the horse discovery"