common HIPPO
During the Middle Weichselian period, 40,000 years ago, hippos colonized Europe from Africa. They passed through the British Isles, central Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. They even arrived in Rome, but there was still no Pope. Not Rome.
A small isolated population of common hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) would have inhabited the Upper Rhine Graben in southwestern Germany during the Weichselian middle periodbetween 47,000 and 31,000 years ago, according to a new study.
Hippos colonized Europe from Africa in several waves, probably involving multiple species of the genus Hippopotamus, including the common hippopotamus, whose habitat is currently limited to sub-Saharan Africa.
During your maximum geographic distribution in Europehippos occupied an area that extended from the British Islesto the northwest, to the Iberian and Italian peninsulas, to the south.
Their presence in the fossil record typically indicates temperate conditions, with denser vegetation and open bodies of water.
The origin of these animals and their relationship with current African hippos, as well as the exact date of their extinction in Central Europe, however, remain uncertain, notes the .
“Until now, it was believed that common hippos they had become extinct in Central Europe around 115,000 years ago, with the end of the last interglacial period”, says the professor Wilfried Rosendahldirector of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, and senior author of the study.
“Our study demonstrates that hippos inhabited the Upper Rhine Graben in southwestern Germany between approximately 47,000 and 31,000 years ago.”
In , whose results were presented in a paper published last week in the journal Current Biology, Rosendahl and colleagues analyzed 19 hippopotamus specimens from fossil sites in the Graben do Reno Superiora geological formation shaped like an elongated “valley”, with the sides higher than the center.
“The Upper Rhine Graben is an important continental climate archive”, he explained Ronny Friedrichresearcher at the Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie and co-author of the study.
“The bones of animals that have survived thousands of years in deposits of gravel and sand constitute a valuable source for research. It’s amazing how well the bones have preserved“, notes Friedrich. “In many of the skeletons it was possible to collect adequate samples for analysis — something that is not guaranteed after so long.”
Previous analysis of ancient DNA revealed that European Ice Age hippos are closely related to African hippos current and belong to the same species. Radiocarbon dating confirmed its presence during a milder climatic phase of the middle Weichselian.
Further genomic analysis indicated very low genetic diversity, suggesting that the Upper Rhine Graben population it was small and isolated.
These results, along with other fossils, show that hippos, heat loverscoexisted temporally with species adapted to the cold, such as mammoths and woolly rhinos.
“The results demonstrate that hippos did not disappear from Central Europe at the end of the last interglacial, as previously thought,” he says. Patrick Arnoldresearcher at the University of Potsdam and first author of the study.
“Therefore, we should reanalyze other fossils of hippos from continental Europe, traditionally attributed to the last interglacial period”, he highlights.
“Our study offers important new insights, impressively proving that the Ice Age was not the same everywherebut that local particularities, together, form a complex picture — similar to a puzzle”, concludes Rosendahl.
