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Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument 221 North State Street P.O National Monument National Park Service Hagerman Fossil Beds U.S. Department of the Interior The Horse Quarry The Find Elmer Cook, a cattle rancher living in vated and three tons of specimens Hagerman, Idaho, discovered some were sent back to the Smithsonian fossil bones on this land. In 1928, in Washington, D.C. He showed them to Dr. H.T. Stearns of the U.S. Geological Survey who Of all the fossils uncovered, the then passed them on to Dr. J. W. most important find was the large Gidley at the Smithsonian Institution. volume of a species of extinct Identified as bones belonging to an horse known as Equus extinct horse, the area where the simplicidens, and named the fossils were discovered was exca­ Hagerman horse. Why Are They Here? Excavation continued into the early quarry area was once a watering 1930's. The quarry floor grew to hole where the bones of the 5,000 square feet with a backwall 45 Hagerman horses accumulated as feet high. Ultimately five nearly injured, old, and ill animals, drawn complete skeletons, more than 100 to water, died there. It is now skulls, and forty-eight lower jaws as known that an entire herd of these well as numerous isolated bones animals probably drowned attempt­ were found. Finding such a large ing to ford a flooded river and were deposit of an animal in one location is swept away In the current. Their a rare occurance. An early explana­ bodies were then quickly buried in tion for the deposit was that the the soft sand beneath the water. The Horse Three and a half million years ago, familiar with today. It is believed also called the Pliocene Epoch, the that this horse was more closely area at Hagerman was a floodplain related to Grevys Zebra that now flowing into ancient Lake Idaho. lives in Africa rather than to do­ Water supported an environment mestically bred horses. where pelicans, herons, swans, frogs and turtles lived. Grasslands sup­ It was about the same size as a ported animals such as the horse, modern day zebra, approximately camel and antelope. 110-145 centimeters (43 to 57 inches) tall at the shoulder. It The Hagerman horse is the earliest- weighed between 110 and 385 known representative of what would kilograms (385 to 847 pounds). eventually become the animai we are Hagerman Horse Grevy's Zebra Modern Thoroughbred Extinction The Hagerman horse was only one probably involved, a dramatic stage in the continuing evolution of fluctuation in climate and perhaps horses. The animal continued to the existence of prehistoric hu­ evolve on the North American conti­ mans who may have relied upon nent until the late Pleistocene period, these animals as a food source about 10,000 years ago. Then, like may have played a part in their camels, and several other large disappearance. bodied mammals that also existed in North America, it vanished. Horses did not return to North America until the Spanish Conquis­ The cause of this mass extinction is tadors brought them from Europe unknown, and a number of theories in the late 1500's. exist. Though many factors were Scientific Timeline" 3.5million years ago 1.67 million years ago 1 million years ago 10,000 years ago 400 years ago present Hagerman Horse Modern Horse ISrjanJsrrjfjll exists MHHHI Li exists Tntroflueefhorsesi PLIOCENE EPOCH MQPERN EPQCH 'Not to scale The Well Travelled Horse Skeletons recovered here at Denver Museum of Natural His­ Hagerman Fossil Beds National tory, Royal Ontario Museum, Monument have been, or currently Toronto, Texas Memorial Museum are in the collection of such places as in Austin, and the Natural Histoiy the Smithsonian Insititution in Wash­ Museum in Los Angeles County. ington, D.C., the Carnegie Museum Such exposure made this horse in Pittsburgh, the Field Museum in famous and in 1988 the state Chicago; the Museum of Compara­ legislature made it the state fossil tive Zoology at Harvard University, of Idaho. Further Reading Boss, N.H. Explorations for fossil McDonald, H. Gregory. More than horses in Idaho. Explorations and Just hlorses. Rocks and Minerals, field work of the Smithsonian Institu­ Sept./Oct. 1993. Vol. 68:322-326. tion in 1931. 1932 Willoughby, David P. "The Empire Gazin, C.L. A study of the fossil horse of Equus." A.S. Barnes and Co. remains from the upper Pliocene of Inc., 1974. Idaho Proceedings of the United States National Museum 83(2,985); 281-320. 1936. MacFadden, Bruce J. "Fossil Horses. Systematics, Paleobiology and Evolution of the Family Equidae." Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992. Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument 221 North State Street P.O. Box 570 Hagerman, Idaho 83332 (208) 837-4793 .
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