Talk:Hippotherium

Low quality of this article
As a researcher specializing in hipparionine paleontology, I suggest that this article is drastically revised. As it is now, it gives an entirely inadequate idea of what Hippotherium is, and instead presents data on a number of taxa (genera/species) of hipparionine horses that, following one research article or another, could be synonymized with Hippotherium, but are not what is generally understood to be Hippotherium in current literature. For example, it is completely misleading to focus this article on ''"H." emsliei or "H." quinni, for example, i.e. species that in more recent literature are usually referred to the genus Cormohipparion''. A few points to consider: If one wants to synonymize genera that way, then all these American taxa described here would probably have to be referred to Hipparion anyway. If basically all hipparions are considered to belong to the same genus (as implied by the introduction to the article), where is the information on the Old World species (other than "H. primigenius"), particularly given that the genus name is an Old World concept? If other Old World hipparions not commonly grouped to Hippotherium are considered to be the same genus as Hippotherium, why is there even an article on Hippotherium, since it would be a junior synonym to "Hipparion"? As it is, this article ignores most of the relevant literature on Hippotherium (and hipparion systematics in general) of the last 20 years, e.g., by Bernor (who, with others, wrote an entensive monograph on Hippotherium primigenium from the Höwenegg locality in 1997, based on more than a dozen near-complete specimens) or Woodburne, who, e.g. in 2007, did extensive research on North American Cormohipparion. While there is at least a picture of a Hippotherium primigenium skeleton from the Höwenegg locality, it is mislabelled ("H. gracile"). Therefore, I suggest a new version of this article, which focuses on the current understanding of Hippotherium (if this is considered a valid genus) as a (particularly Central and Western) European lineage of hipparion horses, known, for example, from localities in Hungary, Germany, Austria, and Italy, has to be made. While it would be justified to mention possible synonymy with either Cormohipparion or Hipparion, the article should most definitely not emphasize America or Africa as Hippotherium's core area of distribution. The hipparions from Africa (especially Sub-Saharan Africa)are mostly (with some exceptions in northern Africa) referred to the genus Eurygnathohippus, a taxon which only disappeared 500 Ka ago. Most notably, the horse from Langebaanweg is referred to E. hooijeri (for example in Bernor and Kaiser, 2006) and not to "H. primigenius". As such, it makes also no sense to give the geochronological range of Hippotherium as currently done; Hippotherium appears in Europe around 11 Ma. Finally, all given age ranges should be referenced; For example, I would love to see the source for information such as: "Doue-la-Fontaine, France, estimated age: ~13.65—7.25 Mya", which is at odds with the assumed earliest appearance of any hipparionine horse in the Old World. If my post is not contested, I would offer to undertake the necessary changes myself at some later time. Paleo79 (talk) 12:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there are noone with sufficient expertise to write an article. Feel free to do it, if you have the time. FunkMonk (talk) 13:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)