Fossil horse discovery on Texel island

Translated from Ecomare museum on Texel island in the Netherlands:

January 8, 2016 – You can find animal bones from the ice age as you wander along the beach on Texel. Eg, the German tourist Andrea with her daughter on January 3 found an intact bone near beach post 12. In Ecomare it turned out to be an ankle bone of a horse!

…

The dark colour indicates that the bone is from the last ice age, between 10,000 and 100,000 years old. Horse bones from that period are quite common. Then whole herds of horses will have run alongside woolly mammoths, steppe bison, giant deer and woolly rhinos. It is special that this bone is completely intact.

How horses lost their toes. Ancient equines had up to four toes, which they shed as their body size grew. By Emily Underwood, 9:00am, August 28, 2017.

Related articles

• Ocean sunfish in Wadden Sea
• Leucistic small copper butterfly on Texel island
• Slow worm discovery on Ameland island
• New moss species discovery on Texel island
• Texel island bats research
• Good nightjar news from Texel island
• Barn owls on Texel island
• Fungus discovered on Texel island for first time
• Sandwich tern research on Texel island