Kenyapotamus

Taxobox
name = "Kenyapotamus"
fossil_range = Middle Miocene to Late Miocene
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Artiodactyla
familia = Hippopotamidae
subfamilia = Kenyapotaminae
genus = "Kenyapotamus"
genus_authority = Pickford, 1983Cite journal| author = Pickford, Martin | year = 1983 | journal = Geobios | location = Lyon | volume = 16 | pages = 193–217 | title = On the origins of Hippopotamidae together with descriptions of two new species, a new genus and a new subfamily from the Miocene of Kenya | doi = 10.1016/S0016-6995(83)80019-9]
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision = "K coryndoni" and
"K. ternani"

"Kenyapotamus" ("(Dweller) in the River of Kenya") is an extinct ancestor of the modern Hippopotamus which lived in Africa roughly 16 million to 8 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. Its name is derived because 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 pigsPetronio, C. (1995): Note on the taxonomy of Pleistocene hippopotamuses. "Ibex" 3: 53-55. [http://www.mountainecology.org/IBEX3/pdf/Art_Capitolo1/note_taxonomy_pleistocene.pdf PDF fulltext] ] .

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.cite journal |last=Boisserie |first=Jean-Renaud |coauthors= Fabrice Lihoreau and Michel Brunet |year= 2005 |month= February|title= The position of Hippopotamidae within Cetartiodactyla|journal= Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume= 102 |issue= 5|pages= 1537–1541|url= http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/5/1537|accessdate= 2007-06-09|doi= 10.1073/pnas.0409518102]

References