Le plus ancien hippopotame fossile (Hippopotamus laloumena) de Madagascar (Belobaka, Province de Mahajanga)

Faure, Martine; Guérin, Claude; Genty, Dominique; Gommery, Dominique; Ramanivosoa, Beby

doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2010.04.002

Cited by 21 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Beginning in the early Holocene, forest-dependent animals, such as lemurs, were common at high as well as middle and low elevations (Table 5). With the exceptions of highly specialized genera such as Hadropithecus and Daubentonia (see , and insectivorous cheirogaleids, lemurs primarily consumed C 3 resources, regardless of altitude (Crowley, 2010;Faure et al, 2010;Muldoon et al, 2012;Simons et al, 1995b). This includes an early Holocene Archaeolemur edwardsi from Ampasambazimba (11 610 cal a BP; Crowley, 2010), whose δ 13 C value (− 24.0‰) contrasts strongly with the Archaeolemur at the same site during the last glaciation (δ 13 C = −16.7‰).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new late Pleistocene subfossil site (Tsaramody, Sambaina basin, central Madagascar) with implications for the chronology of habitat and megafaunal community change on Madagascar's Central Highlands

Samonds

Crowley

Rasolofomanana

et al. 2019

J Quaternary Science

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Madagascar is a complex ‘biodiversity hotspot’ with a rapidly dwindling biota. The Late Quaternary subfossil record includes many extinct species whose loss is attributed to natural climate change and human impacts. Investigation of the chronology of these events is challenging because few localities document pre‐Holocene communities not impacted by humans. Caves with extinct lemurs of large body size comprise some of Madagascar's richest subfossil sites, but provide only a limited window into the island's past. Open highland sites may have fewer primates, but may better document other megafauna, and allow the analysis of the role of the Central Highlands as refugia and as corridors for the dispersal of vertebrates before and after human arrival. Here we present a new subfossil site, Tsaramody (Sambaina basin, Central Madagascar), a high‐altitude wetland area that preserves a diverse late glacial and postglacial vertebrate community. Tsaramody bears testimony to fluctuations in the highland flora during the transition from glacial to postglacial conditions, and the composition of a highland vertebrate community before humans arrived. We compare its biota to those of other sites to begin to document the decline and disappearance of megafauna from some of Madagascar's open ecosystems – wetlands dominated by hippopotamuses and crocodylians. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new late Pleistocene subfossil site (Tsaramody, Sambaina basin, central Madagascar) with implications for the chronology of habitat and megafaunal community change on Madagascar's Central Highlands

Samonds

Crowley

Rasolofomanana

et al. 2019

J Quaternary Science

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“…A true swimming "advantage" may only apply to very large mammals (e.g., hippopotamuses) that can traverse large distances by virtue of their fat reserves (32), and certain semiaquatic reptiles, such as crocodiles or turtles. Hippopotamuses are known to have arrived well before the arrival of humans (33), but nevertheless in the Neogene, presumably by swimming. Crocodiles are also thought to have arrived recently (34,35), possibly through two independent dispersal events (36).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal arrival patterns of Madagascar's vertebrate fauna explained by distance, ocean currents, and ancestor type

Samonds

Godfrey²,

Ali³

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

127

121

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How, when, and from where Madagascar's vertebrates arrived on the island is poorly known, and a comprehensive explanation for the distribution of its organisms has yet to emerge. We begin to break that impasse by analyzing vertebrate arrival patterns implied by currently existing taxa. For each of 81 clades, we compiled arrival date, source, and ancestor type (obligate freshwater, terrestrial, facultative swimmer, or volant). We analyzed changes in arrival rates, with and without adjusting for clade extinction. Probability of successful transoceanic dispersal is negatively correlated with distance traveled and influenced by ocean currents and ancestor type. Obligate rafters show a decrease in probability of successful transoceanic dispersal from the Paleocene onward, reaching the lowest levels after the midMiocene. This finding is consistent with a paleoceanographic model [Ali JR, Huber M (2010) Nature 463:653-656] that predicts Early Cenozoic surface currents periodically conducive to rafting or swimming from Africa, followed by a reconfiguration to present-day flow 15-20 million years ago that significantly diminished the ability for transoceanic dispersal to Madagascar from the adjacent mainland.endemism | phylogenetics | biogeography | evolutionary history | animal distributions

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“…These authors assumed (because of its large size) that this skull was from Mananjary, the type site for the largest of the extinct Malagasy hippos H. laloumena . However, the skull had neither provenience information nor a specimen label, and a recent study of its morphology (Faure et al ) has confirmed that it is a Hippopotamus amphibius which was apparently brought to the Académie Malgache for comparative study. Another hippo specimen at the Académie Malgache, this one actually from Mananjary, yielded a much older radiocarbon date (2250 ± 100 Cal BP).…”

Section: Reconstructed Vegetation Change and Inferred Climate During mentioning

confidence: 99%

Island‐wide aridity did not trigger recent megafaunal extinctions in Madagascar

et al. 2016

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Researchers are divided about the relative importance of people versus climate in triggering the Late Holocene extinctions of the endemic large‐bodied fauna on the island of Madagascar. Specifically, a dramatic and synchronous decline in arboreal pollen and increase in grass pollen ca 1000 yr ago has been alternatively interpreted as evidence for aridification, increased human activity, or both. As aridification and anthropogenic deforestation can have similar effects on vegetation, resolving which of these factors (if either) led to the demise of the megafauna on Madagascar has remained a challenge. We use stable nitrogen isotope (δ15N) values from radiocarbon‐dated subfossil vertebrates to disentangle the relative importance of natural and human‐induced changes. If increasing aridity were responsible for megafaunal decline, then we would expect an island‐wide increase in δ15N values culminating in the highest values at the time of proposed maximum drought at ca 1000 yr ago. Alternatively, if climate were relatively stable and anthropogenic habitat alteration explains the palynological signal, then we would anticipate little or no change in habitat moisture, and no systematic, directional change in δ15N values over time. After accounting for the confounding influences of diet, geographic region, and coastal proximity, we find no change in δ15N values over the past 10 000 yr, and no support for a period of marked, geographically widespread aridification culminating 900–950 yr ago. Instead, increases in grasses at around that time may signal a transition in human land use to a more dedicated agro‐pastoralist lifestyle, when megafaunal populations were already in decline. Land use changes ca 1000 yr ago would have simply accelerated the inevitable loss of Madagascar's megafauna.

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Le plus ancien hippopotame fossile (Hippopotamus laloumena) de Madagascar (Belobaka, Province de Mahajanga)

Cited by 21 publications

References 7 publications

A new late Pleistocene subfossil site (Tsaramody, Sambaina basin, central Madagascar) with implications for the chronology of habitat and megafaunal community change on Madagascar's Central Highlands

A new late Pleistocene subfossil site (Tsaramody, Sambaina basin, central Madagascar) with implications for the chronology of habitat and megafaunal community change on Madagascar's Central Highlands

Spatial and temporal arrival patterns of Madagascar's vertebrate fauna explained by distance, ocean currents, and ancestor type

Island‐wide aridity did not trigger recent megafaunal extinctions in Madagascar

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