Kenyapotamus

{{Short description|Possible ancestor of living hippopotamuses}}

{{Automatic Taxobox

|fossil_range = {{fossil range|Middle Miocene|Late Miocene|Middle Miocene to Late Miocene}}

|taxon = Kenyapotamus

|authority = Pickford, 1983{{Cite 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| issue = 2| bibcode = 1983Geobi..16..193P }}

| subdivision_ranks = Species

| subdivision =

K. coryndoni and

K. ternani

}}

Kenyapotamus is a possible

ancestor of living hippopotamuses that lived 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 Kenyapotamus, its dental pattern bore similarities to that of the genus Xenohyus, a European suid from the Early Miocene. This led some scientists to conclude that hippopotami were most closely related to modern peccaries and suids.Petronio, 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] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080912012236/http://www.mountainecology.org/IBEX3/pdf/Art_Capitolo1/note_taxonomy_pleistocene.pdf |date=2008-09-12 }}

Recent molecular research has suggested that hippopotamuses 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 hippos 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 |author2=Fabrice Lihoreau |author3=Michel Brunet |date=February 2005|title= The position of Hippopotamidae within Cetartiodactyla|journal= Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume= 102 |issue= 5|pages= 1537–1541|doi= 10.1073/pnas.0409518102 |pmid=15677331 |pmc=547867|bibcode = 2005PNAS..102.1537B |doi-access=free }}