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Hippopotamus madagascariensis Guldberg, 1883

Madagascan dwarf hippopotamus, Madagascan pygmy hippo, Malagasy hippo

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

Synonym/s: Hippopotamus guldbergi Fovet, Faure & Guérin, 2011

 

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: 2635 ± 40 14C age BP ± SD (Michielsen et al., 2023)

IUCN RedList status: Extinct

 

Distribution

Madagascar

 

Biology & Ecology

 

 

Hypodigm

 

 

Media

 

 

References

Boisserie, J.-R. (2016). Hippopotamus madagascariensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T40783A90128828. Downloaded on 23 July 2016.

Boisserie, J.-R. 2016. Hippopotamus madagascariensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T40783A90128828. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T40783A90128828.en. Accessed on 20 June 2022.

Burney, D. A., Pigott, B. L., Godfrey, L. R., Jungers, W. L., Goodmane, S. M., Wright, H. T. and Jull, A. J. T. 2004. A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar. Journal of Human Evolution: 25-63.

Burney, D. A. and Ramilisonina. (1998). The kilopilopitsofy, kidoky and bokyboky: accounts of strange animals from Belo-sur-Mer, Madagascar, and the megafaunal “extinction window”. American Anthropologist 100(4): 957-966. [automatic download]

Crowley, B. E. A refined chronology of prehistoric Madagascar and the demise of the megafauna. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 2591–2603 (2010).

Crowley, Brooke Erin, Godfrey, Laurie Rohde and Samonds, Karen Elizabeth. (2023). What can hippopotamus isotopes tell us about past distributions of C4 grassy biomes on Madagascar? Plants, People, Planet. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10402

Crowley, B. E. & Samonds, K. E. Stable carbon isotope values confirm a recent increase in grasslands in northwestern Madagascar. The Holocene 23, 1066–1073 (2013).

Dewar, R. E. 1984. Extinctions in Madagascar. The loss of the subfossil fauna. In: P. S. Martin and R. G. Klein (eds), Quaternary extinctions. A prehistoric revolution, pp. 574-593. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, USA.

Faure, M. and Guérin, C. 1990. Hippopotamus laloumena nov. sp., la troisième espèce d'hippopotame holocène de Madagascar. Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences 310: 1299-1305.

Faure, M., Guérin, C., Genty, D., Gommery, D. and Ramanivosoa, B. 2010. Le plus ancien hippopotame fossile (Hippopotamus laloumena) de Madagascar (Belobaka, Province de Mahajanga). Comptes Rendus Palevol 9: 155-162.

Faure, M., Guérin, C. and Ohler, A.-M. (2015). Le statut du nom Hippopotamus madagascariensis Guldberg, 1883. Réponse à Rakotovao et al. 2014. Geodiversitas 37: 267-269.

Flacourt, E. 1661. Histoire de la grande isle de Madagascar. Pierre L'Amy, Paris, France.

Fovet, W., Faure, M. and Guérin, C. 2011. Hippopotamus guldbergi n. sp.: révision du statut d'Hippopotamus madagascariensis Guldberg, 1883, après plus d'un siècle de malentendus et de confusions taxonomiques. Zoosystema 33(1): 62-82.

Godfrey, L. R. (1986). The Tale of the Tsy-aomby-aomby. The Sciences [1986]: 49-51.

Gommery, D., Ramanivosoa, B., Faure, M., Guérin, C., Kerloc’h, P., Sénégas, F. and Randrianantenaina, H. 2011. Les plus anciennes traces d’activités anthropiques de Madagascar sur des ossements d’hippopotames subfossiles d’Anjohibe (Province de Mahajanga). Comptes Rendus Palevol 10: 271-278.

Huminsky, Isabella. (2017). The Discovery of Extinct Hippopotami Fossils in Anjohibe Cave. Thesis, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. 11 pp.

Joseph, Grant S. and Seymour, Colleen L. (2022). Are Madagascar's obligate grazing-lawns ancient and evolved with endemic herbivores, or recently selected by introduced cattle? Biology Letters 18: 20220212.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0212

Kouvari, M. & van der Geer, A. A. E. Biogeography of extinction: The demise of insular mammals from the Late Pleistocene till today. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 505, 295–304 (2018).

MacPhee, R. D. E. and Burney, D. A. 1991. Dating of modified femora of extinct dwarf hippopotamus from southern Madagascar: implications for constraining human colonization and vertebrate extinction events. Journal of Archaeological Science 18: 695-706.

MacPhee, R.D.E. and Flemming, C. 1999. Requiem Aeternam. The last five hundred years of mammalian extinctions. In: R.D.E. MacPhee (ed.), Extinctions in Near Time, pp. 333-371. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, USA.

Mahé, J., and Sourdat, M. (1972). Sur l'extinction des vertébrés subfossiles et I'aridification du climat dans le sud-ouest de Madagascar. Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France 14: 295-309.

Michielsen, Nathan M., Goodman, Steven M., Soarimalala, Voahangy, van der Geer, Alexandra A. E., Dávalos, Liliana M., Saville, Grace I., Upham, Nathan and Valente, Luis. (2023). The macroevolutionary impact of recent and imminent mammal extinctions on Madagascar. Nature Communications 14: 14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35215-3 [Supplementary Data 1 (mammal list); Supplementary Data 6 (references)]

Orliac, Maëva J. et al. (2023). Evolution of semiaquatic habits in hippos and their extinct relatives: insights from the ear region. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlac112

Pandolfi, Luca et al. (2020). Investigating ecological and phylogenetic constraints in Hippopotamidae skull shape. Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafi (Research in Paleontology and Stratigraphy) 126(1): 37-49.

Rakotovao, M., Lignereux, Y., Orliac, M., Duranthon, F. and Antoine, P.-O. 2014. Hippopotamus lemerlei Grandidier, 1868 et Hippopotamus madagascariensis Guldberg, 1883 (Mammalia, Hippopotamidae) : anatomie crânio-dentaire et révision systématique. Geodiversitas 36: 117-161.

Raybaud. (1902). Rapport de M. I'administrateur Raybaud sur les gisements fossiliferes d'Ampasambazimba. Bulletin de l'Academie Malgache 1(2): 64-67.

Simmons, A. H. 1988. Extinct pigmy hippopotamus and early man in Cyprus. Nature 333: 554-557.

Stuenes, S. (1989). Taxonomy, habits, and relationships of the subfossil Madagascan hippopotami Hippopotamus lemerlei and H. madagascariensis. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 9(3): 241-268.

Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.

Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]

Upham, N. S., Esselstyn, J. A. & Jetz, W. Inferring the mammal tree: Species-level sets of phylogenies for questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. PLOS Biol. 17, e3000494 (2019).

Weston, E.M. and Lister, A.M. 2009. Insular dwarfism in hippos and a model for brain size reduction in Homo floresiensis. Nature 459: 85-88.

 

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