''Hippopotamus melitensis'' is an extinct
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 extan ...
from
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
. It arrived after the
Messinian salinity crisis[Hunt, Christopher O., Schembri, Patrick J.]
Quaternary Environments and Biogeography of the Maltese Islands
, page 31, access in 13/03/2016 and lived during the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
. The absence of predators, and limited food supplies led to the
dwarfing of the hippos. The majority of findings of this species are from
Għar Dalam
Għar Dalam ("Cave of Dalam" (a fifteenth century family name), ) is a 144 metre long phreatic tube and cave, or cul-de-sac, located in the outskirts of Birżebbuġa, Malta. The cave contains the bone remains of animals that were stranded and s ...
, a cave on Malta famous for its Pleistocene fossil deposits.
See also
*
Sicilian hippopotamus
''Hippopotamus pentlandi'' is an extinct hippopotamus from Sicily. It arrived during the Pleistocene. It is the largest of the insular dwarf hippos known from the Pleistocene of the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to ...
*
Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus
*
Cretan dwarf hippopotamus
''Hippopotamus creutzburgi'', the Cretan dwarf hippopotamus, is an extinct species of hippopotamus from the island of Crete. ''Hippopopotamus'' colonized Crete probably 800,000 years ago and lived there during the Middle Pleistocene. Bones of ''H ...
References
Extinct hippopotamuses
Pleistocene even-toed ungulates
Extinct mammals of Europe
Messinian
Fossil taxa described in 1902
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