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Kenyapotamus; Fossil range: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia;
Phylum:	Chordata;
Class:	Mammalia;
Order:	Artiodactyla;
Family:	Hippopotamidae;
Subfamily:	Kenyapotaminae;
Genus:	Kenyapotamus; Pickford, 1983
Species
	K coryndoni and; K. ternani

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]

[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 (Lyon) 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. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/5/1537. Retrieved 2007-06-09.

This prehistoric even-toed ungulate-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[Kenyapotamus-0] 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 (Lyon) 16: 193–217. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(83)80019-9.

[Petronio_on_hippos-1] Petronio, C. (1995): Note on the taxonomy of Pleistocene hippopotamuses. Ibex 3: 53-55. PDF fulltext

[Cetartiodactyla-2] 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. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/5/1537. Retrieved 2007-06-09.

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