Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Mazza, Paul P. A.

Titel

If hippopotamuses cannot swim, how did they colonize islands?

Ist Teil von

• Lethaia, 2014-10, Vol.47 (4), p.494-499

Ort / Verlag

Oslo: Wiley

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Owing to their aquatic lifestyle, hippopotamuses are normally believed to have reached islands by swimming. Yet, some studies suggest they cannot swim due to their relatively high density. If so, this raises the question of how hippopotamuses would have reached some islands. Their immigration into the British Isles, Sicily, Malta, Zanzibar and Mafia can be accounted for, because these islands sit on continental shelves and were often linked to the mainland during the Pleistocene glacio-eustatic sea-level falls. In contrast, their occurrence in Crete, Cyprus and Madagascar would be more difficult to explain. Available geological evidence does not seem to rule out that the latter islands might have been connected with the nearest mainland areas in very recent times. This study intends to consider possibilities about how hippopotamuses reached islands and to show that more effective collaboration is required among specialists involved with the study of insular evolution, colonization and speciation.