Kenyapotamus

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Kenyapotamus
Fossil range: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Hippopotamidae
Subfamily:	Kenyapotaminae
Genus:	Kenyapotamus Pickford, 1983^[1]

Species

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. Also a common joke in the english language (among mature adults) is "kenyapotamus? - I can."

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 Kenyapotamus and the entire Hippopotamidae family, along with the anatomically similar family Anthracotheriidae, may be more closely related to Cetaceans.^[3]

[edit] 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: 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; Fabrice Lihoreau and Michel Brunet (February 2005). "The position of Hippopotamidae within Cetartiodactyla". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (5): 1537–1541. doi:10.1073/pnas.0409518102.