Odd-Toed Ungulate Families (Perissodactyla)

This group gathers taxon/Mammal Families subcategory members that are themselves mammal families belonging to the order Perissodactyla, the odd-toed hoofed mammals, whose weight rests primarily on a single central toe or, in the tapirs, an odd number of toes overall. It spans Equidae, the horse family, encompassing wild and domestic horses, zebras and donkeys, Rhinocerotidae, the rhinoceros family, and Tapiridae, the tapir family, a group of stocky, short-legged forest browsers found today only in Central and South America and Southeast Asia, a striking, disjointed distribution for animals with limited dispersal ability. Every family gathered here descends from a once far more diverse order that dominated many large-herbivore ecological niches before an evolutionary decline that left only these three families as survivors, a marked contrast with the ecological success of the even-toed ungulates gathered separately above.