Kenyapotamus
| Kenyapotamus Temporal range: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene
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| Genus: | Kenyapotamus Pickford, 1983[1]
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K coryndoni and | |
Kenyapotamus is a possible ancestor of living hippopotamids that lived in Africa roughly 16 million to 8 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. Its name reflects that its fossils were first found in modern-day Kenya.
Although little is known about the Kenyapotamus, its dental pattern bore similarities to that of the genus Xenohyus, a European tayassuid from the Early Miocene. This led some scientists to conclude that hippopotami were most closely related to modern peccaries and pigs[2].
Recent molecular research has suggested that hippopotamids are more closely related to cetaceans than to other artiodactyls. A morphological analysis of fossil artiodactyls and whales, which also included Kenyapotamus, strongly supported a relationship between hippopotamids and the anatomically similar family Anthracotheriidae. Two archaic whales (Pakicetus and Artiocetus) formed the sister group of the hippopotamid-anthracotheriid clade, but this relationship was weakly supported.[3]
References
- ^ Pickford, Martin (1983). "On the origins of Hippopotamidae together with descriptions of two new species, a new genus and a new subfamily from the Miocene of Kenya". Geobios. 16. Lyon: 193–217. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(83)80019-9.
- ^ Petronio, C. (1995): Note on the taxonomy of Pleistocene hippopotamuses. Ibex 3: 53-55. PDF fulltext
- ^ Boisserie, Jean-Renaud (2005). "The position of Hippopotamidae within Cetartiodactyla". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (5): 1537–1541. doi:10.1073/pnas.0409518102. PMC 547867. PMID 15677331. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
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