Forty-seven million years ago, a pregnant mare drank from a lake that may have poisoned her with its deadly volcanic gases.
Now, her remarkably well-preserved body has been recovered by palaeontologists working in the Messel Pit, a former coal, in Darmstadt, Germany.
The fossilised remains of the mare and her unborn foal are providing scientists with new insights into these ancient creatures.
'Almost all of the bones of the foetus are still articulated in their original position. Only the skull is crushed,' said Dr Jens Lorenz Franzen of the Senckenberg Research Institute, lead author of the study.
