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1. Evolution of Old World Equus and origin of the zebra-ass clade

   https://doi.org/doi:org/10.1038/s41598-021-89440-9  

   Cirilli, O. (May 2021, Scientific reports)

   null (Ed.)

   Study of the evolution of the genus Equus utilizing fossil and extant species. Results show that Equus is a clade and that the genera Plesippus (North America) and Allohippus (Eurasia and Africa) are invalid. The study provides new insights into the relationships of extant zebras and asses to Plio-Pleistocene member of the Equus clade. 

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2. Target Deformation of the Equus stenonis Holotype Skull: A Virtual Reconstruction

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.00247  

   Cirilli, O. (June 2020, Frontiers)

   Pandolfi, L. (Ed.)

   Equus stenonis is one of the most prevalent European Pleistocene fossil horses. It is believed to be the possible ancestor of all Old World Early Pleistocene Equus, extant zebras and asses, and as such provides insights into Equus evolution and its biogeography and paleoecology. The Equus stenonis holotype skull (IGF560) was first described by Igino Cocchi in 1867, from the Early Pleistocene locality of Terranuova (Upper Valdarno basin, Italy). IGF560 is a nearly complete, although medio-laterally crushed and badly compressed skull. Here we provide the first application of a new virtual reconstruction protocol, termed Target Deformation, to the Equus stenonis holotype. The protocol extends beyond classic retrodeformation by using target specimens as a guide for the virtual reconstruction. The targets used as a reference are two fragmentary, yet well-preserved E. stenonis skulls, coming from Olivola (Italy; IGF11023) and Dmanisi (Georgia; Dm 5/154.3/4.A4.5), both Early Pleistocene in age. These two specimens do not display any major deformation, but preserve different, only slightly overlapping portions of the skull. The virtual reconstruction protocol we carried out has shown its feasibility, by producing two 3D models whose final morphology is perfectly congruent with the natural variability of a comparative sample of E. stenonis specimens. This study shows the potential of using even broken or otherwise fragmentary specimens to guide retrodeformation in badly distorted and damaged specimens. The application of Target Deformation will allow us to increase the availability of comparative specimens in studies of fossil species morphology and evolution, as well as to the study of taphonomic processes. 

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3. Testing Equid Body Mass Estimate Equations on Modern Zebras—With Implications to Understanding the Relationship of Body Size, Diet, and Habitats of Equus in the Pleistocene of Europe

   https://doi.org/doi:10.3389/fevo.2021.622412  

   Saarinen, J. (February 2021, Frontiers)

   null (Ed.)

   The monodactyl horses of the genus Equus originated in North America during the Pliocene, and from the beginning of the Pleistocene, they have been an essential part of the large ungulate communities of Europe, North America and Africa. Understanding how body size of Equus species evolved and varied in relation to changes in environments and diet thus forms an important part of understanding the dynamics of ungulate body size variation in relation to Pleistocene paleoenvironmental changes. Here we test previously published body mass estimation equations for the family Equidae by investigating how accurately different skeletal and dental measurements estimate the mean body mass (and body mass range) reported for extant Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi) and Burchell’s zebra (Equus quagga). Based on these tests and information on how frequently skeletal elements occur in the fossil record, we construct a hierarchy of best practices for the selection of body mass estimation equations in Equus. As a case study, we explore body size variation in Pleistocene European Equus paleopopulations in relation to diet and vegetation structure in their paleoenvironments. We show a relationship between diet and body size in Equus: very large-sized species tend to have more browse-dominated diets than small and medium-sized species, and paleovegetation proxies indicate on average more open and grass-rich paleoenvironments for small-sized, grazing species of Equus. When more than one species of Equus co-occur sympatrically, the larger species tend to be less abundant and have more browse-dominated diets than the smaller species. We suggest that body size variation in Pleistocene Equus was driven by a combined effect of resource quality and availability, partitioning of habitats and resources between species, and the effect of environmental openness and group size on the body size of individuals 

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4. Deep dive into KABR: a dataset for understanding ungulate behavior from in-situ drone video

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-024-20512-4  

   Kholiavchenko, Maksim; Kline, Jenna; Kukushkin, Maksim; Brookes, Otto; Stevens, Sam; Duporge, Isla; Sheets, Alec; Babu, Reshma R; Banerji, Namrata; Campolongo, Elizabeth; et al (December 2024, Multimedia Tools and Applications)

   In this paper, we extend the dataset statistics, model benchmarks, and performance analysis for the recently published KABR dataset, an in situ dataset for ungulate behavior recognition using aerial footage from the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. The dataset comprises video footage of reticulated giraffes (lat. Giraffa reticulata), Plains zebras (lat. Equus quagga), and Grévy’s zebras (lat. Equus grevyi) captured using a DJI Mavic 2S drone. It includes both spatiotemporal (i.e., mini-scenes) and behavior annotations provided by an expert behavioral ecologist. In total, KABR has more than 10 hours of annotated video. We extend the previous work in four key areas by: (i) providing comprehensive dataset statistics to reveal new insights into the data distribution across behavior classes and species; (ii) extending the set of existing benchmark models to include a new state-of-the-art transformer; (iii) investigating weight initialization strategies and exploring whether pretraining on human action recognition datasets is transferable to in situ animal behavior recognition directly (i.e., zero-shot) or as initialization for end-to-end model training; and (iv) performing a detailed statistical analysis of the performance of these models across species, behavior, and formally defined segments of the long-tailed distribution. The KABR dataset addresses the limitations of previous datasets sourced from controlled environments, offering a more authentic representation of natural animal behaviors. This work marks a significant advancement in the automatic analysis of wildlife behavior, leveraging drone technology to overcome traditional observational challenges and enabling a more nuanced understanding of animal interactions in their natural habitats. The dataset is available at https://kabrdata.xyz 

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5. Equus stenonis (Equidae, Mammalia) from the Early Pleistocene of Pantalla (Italy) and the dispersion of stenonine horses in Europe

   https://doi.org/doi:10.4435/BSPI.2020.21  

   Cherin, M. (November 2020, Bollettino della Società paleontologica italiana)

   null (Ed.)

   Describes the Equus record from Pantalla, Italy attributed to the Pleistocene species Equus stenonis. A combination of morphometric analyses of postcrania secure the identification of the species and shows considerable morphometric homogeneity in the species. 

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