Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

Scandinavian University Press, Lethaia: An International Journal of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy, 4(47), p. 494-499, 2014

DOI: 10.1111/let.12074

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

If hippopotamuses cannot swim, how did they colonize islands?

Journal article published in 2014 by Paul P. A. Mazza ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Owing to their aquatic lifestyle, hippopotamuses are normally believed to have reached islands by swimming. Yet, some studies suggest they cannot swim due to their relatively high density. If so, this raises the question of how hippopotamuses would have reached some islands. Their immigration into the British Isles, Sicily, Malta, Zanzibar and Mafia can be accounted for, because these islands sit on continental shelves and were often linked to the mainland during the Pleistocene glacio-eustatic sea-level falls. In contrast, their occurrence in Crete, Cyprus and Madagascar would be more difficult to explain. Available geological evidence does not seem to rule out that the latter islands might have been connected with the nearest mainland areas in very recent times. This study intends to consider possibilities about how hippopotamuses reached islands and to show that more effective collaboration is required among specialists involved with the study of insular evolution, colonization and speciation.