Smit Original Early Drawing of Phenacodon &

SMIT, Joseph (1836-1929).
Phenacodon & Hyracotehria.
Original Illustration in pen, ink and grey wash, heightened in white.
c.1905-1912.
10 5/8" x 7 1/4" sheet.

Original artwork for Henry R. Knipe's Nebula to Man. Illustrated on page 110.

1. Phenacodontidae is an extinct family of large herbivorous mammals traditionally placed in the “wastebasket taxon” Condylarthra, which may instead represent early-stage perissodactyls. They lived between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs (about 60–50 million years ago) and their fossil remains have been found in North America and Europe. It is closely related to the horse.

2. Hyracotherium ("hyrax-like beast") is an extinct genus of very small (about 60 cm in length) perissodactyl ungulates that was found in the London Clay formation. This small, dog-sized animal was once considered to be the earliest known member of Equidae before the type species, H. leporinum, was reclassified as a palaeothere, a perissodactyl family basal to both horses and brontotheres. The remaining species are now thought to belong to different genera, such as Eohippus, which had previously been synonymised with Hyracotherium.