A photo of a fossilised fragment of jawbone from an ancient hippopotamus.

Photo: Rebecca Kind

Finds such as this lower jaw show that hippos once called the Upper Rhine their home, some 40,000 years ago. Genetic analyses of bones, conducted in collaboration with the University of Fribourg, have now revealed that these animals were closely related to today’s African hippopotamuses. Dating evidence has furthermore proven that these hippos were able to survive there until well into the Weichselian glaciation – the last glacial period in Northern Europe. Up to now, researchers had believed that hippos had died out there much earlier.

P. Arnold et al.: Ancient DNA and dating evidence for the dispersal of hippos into central Europe during the last glacial. Current Biology (2025)

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