Resumen de Rooting the River Horse.
This article focuses on research into the origins of the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus has a formidable reputation among evolutionary biologists: the beast has defied attempts to pinpoint its origin for nearly two centuries. To that end, recent findings may finally put the hippo in its place. Experts agree that hippos belong to the mammalian order Artiodactyla, a group of even-toed, hoofed creatures whose extant representatives include camels, pigs and ruminants such as cows. But exactly where hippos sit on the artiodactyl family tree has proved devilishly difficult to discern. Two hypotheses lead the pack. The first posits that the piglike peccaries, or tayassuids, are the closest relatives of the hippo. The second proposes that extinct swampdwelling creatures called anthracotheres own that distinction.
