Kenyapotamus
| Kenyapotamus Temporal range: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene
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Kenyapotamus
Pickford, 1983[1]
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K coryndoni and |
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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 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
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Petronio, C. (1995): Note on the taxonomy of Pleistocene hippopotamuses. Ibex 3: 53-55. PDF fulltext
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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