World Hippo Day on February 15 celebrates the extraordinary hippo and encourages action to prevent its extinction. Did you know that before 1909, scientists grouped hippos with pigs? Despite their physical resemblance to pigs or wild boars, hippos are closely related to whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Hippos are semi-aquatic mammals native to sub-Saharan Africa. They are herbivores and can weigh up to 2,000 kilograms, making them the third largest continental mammal after elephants and rhinos. Hippos are mainly found in rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps.

History of World Hippo Day

Hippos are thought to have originated from a group of semi-aquatic animals called Whippomorpha. This group later split into two branches about 54 million years ago. The first branch, including whales and dolphins, evolved into complete aquatic cetaceans. The second branch became anthrax, a close relative of the common hippopotamus.

During the Pliocene (more than two million years ago), all branches of the Anthraxidae became extinct, except those that evolved into the Hippoidae. This group of hippo ancestors migrated to Africa about 35 million years ago and ruled the continent as one of the first large mammals. Between 16 and 8 million years ago, the oldest known hippopotamus, the Kenipoma, lived on the African continent. But the group that later evolved into the modern hippopotamus was the ancient hippopotamus, which lived in Africa and the Middle East between 75 and 18 million years ago.

Hippo ancestors existed in Europe and the British Isles before the last ice age, including the European hippopotamus – the ancient hippopotamus – the great hippo and the black hippo. But these hippo species went extinct, and the exact cause remains unknown, although scientists speculate that it may have been to humans.

The ancestors of European hippos migrated to many Mediterranean islands during the Pleistocene, evolved, and later became extinct. These hippo species include the Cypriot pygmy hippopotamus, Hippopotamus pentlandi, Hippopotamus melitensis and Hippopotamus creutzburgi. Between 50,000 and 16,000 years ago, all hippos in the supercontinent Eurasia became extinct.

In North America, there was anthrax in the early Oligocene (more than 23 million years ago), but no evidence of hippos has ever been found on the continent. Several attempts have been made to introduce the species into the United States, but have never been successful. It wasn’t until the late 1980s when Pablo Escobar illegally imported four hippos into Colombia. Since then, the hippo population has grown to around 100.

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