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The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) (/ ˌ h ɪ p ə ˈ p ɒ t ə m ə s /; pl.: hippopotamuses; often shortened to hippo (pl.: hippos), further qualified as the common hippopotamus, Nile hippopotamus and river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa.
The enigmatic dinoceratans were among the first large herbivorous mammals, although their exact relationship with other mammals is still debated with one of the theories being that they might just be distant relatives to living ungulates; the most recent study recovers them as within the true ungulate assemblage, closest to Carodnia.
While they resemble pigs physiologically, their closest living relatives are the cetaceans. They are sometimes referred to as hippopotamids. There are two living species of hippopotamid in two genera; the pygmy hippo, Choeropsis liberiensis of the forests of west Africa, and the common hippo, Hippopotamus amphibius.
Comparison of even-toed ungulate and cetaceans genetic material has shown that the closest living relatives of whales and hippopotamuses is the paraphyletic group Artiodactyla. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Dan Graur and Desmond Higgins were among the first to come to this conclusion, and included a paper published in 1994. [ 9 ]
While the hyrax might look like a guinea pig, the African Wildlife Foundation reports that the little cuties are one of the elephant's closest living relatives, along with the manatee.
Among the anthracotheres, members of Bothriodontinae are among the closest to the ancestry of hippos, with the Oligocene aged Epirigenys from Lokon, Turkana, Kenya being the sister taxon to hippos. [2] [3] [4] In response of this many similar clade names have been used for this clade (Hippopotamoidea, Anthracotherioidea, and Hippopotamidamorpha ...
The term sister group is used in phylogenetic analysis, however, only groups identified in the analysis are labeled as "sister groups".. An example is birds, whose commonly cited living sister group is the crocodiles, but that is true only when discussing extant organisms; [3] [4] when other, extinct groups are considered, the relationship between birds and crocodiles appears distant.
Recent evidence, gained from comparative gene sequencing, further suggests that hippos are the closest living relatives of whales, [11] [12] so, if anthracotheres are stem hippos, they would also be related to whales in a clade provisionally called Whippomorpha.