The western horse inhabited North America during the Ice Age.

Physical description
This species represents the larger end of the prehistoric horse spectrum - it was about the size of a mustang. It was a stoutly built animal and resembled the extinct quagga (Equus quagga) or the modern Burchell's zebra (Equus burchelli), although it was not a close relative of either or these species.

Distribution
Its fossil remains are found all over the USA. Lots of bones have been recovered from the Rancho La Brea tar pits, near Los Angeles.

Habitat
It lived on grasslands.

Diet
The western horse was a grazer, like all living horse and ass species.

Behaviour
Unknown.

Reproduction
Unknown.

Conservation status
Western horses are extinct. They died out at the end of the Ice Age, about 11,000 years ago.

Notes
The earliest fossils of the western horse are 500,000 years old. There may have been as many as nine different species of horses in the Americas when people first discovered the continent. They were all extinct by 9,000 years ago. Horses and asses were not reintroduced to the Americas until Europeans brought them over in the early 16th Century.