Hippopotamus creutzburgi

Hippopotamus creutzburgi Temporal range: Pleistocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Hippopotamidae
Genus:	Hippopotamus
Species:	†H. creutzburgi
Binomial name
† Hippopotamus creutzburgi Boekschoten & Sondaar, 1966[1]

Hippopotamus creutzburgi is an extinct species of hippopotamus which lived on the island of Crete. Hippopopotamus colonized Crete probably 800,000 years ago and lived there during the Middle Pleistocene.^[2]

Two subspecies have been named: Hippopotamus creutzburgi creutzburgi and the smaller Hippopotamus creutzburgi parvus.^[3]

Bones of the H. creutzburgi were found by Dorothea Bate on the Katharo plateau, in eastern Crete, in the 1920s.^[4]

A similar species, the Cyprus Dwarf Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus minor) lived on the island of Cyprus until the Holocene. It was smaller than both species of Cretan hippo.

See also

• Cyprus Dwarf Hippopotamus
• Sicilian Hippopotamus
• Maltese Hippopotamus

References

1. ^ Boekschoten, G.J. & Sondaar, P.Y. (1966): The Pleistocene of the Katharo basin (Crete) and its Hippopotamus. Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde 36: 17-44.
2. ^ van der Geer A., Lyras G., de Vos J., Dermitzakis M., (2010): Evolution of Island Mammals: adaptation and Extinction of Placental Mammals on Islands. Oxford: Wiley
3. ^ Kuss, S.E., (1975): Hippopotamus creutzburgi parvus n. ssp., ein pleistozänes Zwergflusspferd von der Insel Kreta. Ber. Naturf. Ges. Freiburg i. Br. 65:5-23
4. ^ Evans, Arthur: The Early Nilotic, Libyan and Egyptian Relations with Minoan Crete in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Vol. 55, Jul. - Dec., 1925 (Jul. - Dec., 1925), pp. 199-228