''Hippopotamus laloumena'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species of hippopotamus from Pleistocene and Holocene Madagascar, making it the oldest of Malagasy hippopotamus. ''H. laloumena'' was much larger than other Malagasy hippopotamus, but was still somewhat smaller than the

common hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant ...

(''H. amphibius''). However, little is known about the species because it was identified with only a lower jaw and limb bones. It was described in 1990 by French palaeontologists M. Faure and Guerin, the fossils recovered from a site near

Mananjary Mananjary is a city located in Vatovavy, Madagascar with a population of 25,222 inhabitants in 2018. It is the chief city of the Mananjary district. It contains a town of the same name, situated on the southern part of the east coast, where the M ...

on the east coast of Madagascar. The species name derives from Malagasy ' "hippopotamus".

Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

of ''H. laloumena'' remains returned dates both before definitive human occupation of Madagascar (2364-2212 BP), and after European contact (1670-1950 and 1639-1945 AD). However, the latter were taken from a skull of dubious provenance and importation from mainland Africa cannot be excluded. Nevertheless, ethnographic data collected in

Belo sur Mer Belo sur Mer is a town and commune ( mg, kaominina) in Madagascar. It belongs to the district of Morondava, which is a part of Menabe Region. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 8,000 in 2001 commune census. Primary an ...

include putative eyewitness accounts of a hippo-like animal as recently as 1976.David A. Burney, Lida Pigott Burney, Laurie R. Godfrey, William L. Jungers, Steven M. Goodman, Henry T. Wright, A. J. Timothy Jull, 2004, "A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar.", ''Journal of Human Evolution'', Vol.47, Issue 1-2, pp.25-63 While clearly different from Madagascar's other two recent hippopotamuses ('' H. lemerlei'' and '' H. madagascariensis''), the relationship between ''H. laloumena'' and the common hippopotamus is not fully resolved. It is possible ''H. laloumena'' is merely the result of hippos sporadically crossing from

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

to Madagascar during the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

; if true, this would make ''H. laloumena'' a junior synonym of ''H. amphibius''.Alexandra van der Geer, George Lyras, John de Vos, 2011, ''Evolution of Island Mammals: Adaptation and Extinction of Placental Mammals on Islands.'', John Wiley & Sons, 496 pages. Fossils of ''H. laloumena'' have been excavated from west and east coasts, and overlap with ranges of other Malagasy hippopotamuses.

References

Extinct hippopotamuses Extinct animals of Madagascar Holocene extinctions Prehistoric animals of Madagascar {{paleo-eventoedungulate-stub

See also

References