woolly hippopotamus

English

Noun

woolly hippopotamus

1. A hypothesized extinct relative to the hippopotamus that supposedly lived in northern or western Europe during the Ice Age.
   • 1925, Lucretia Thatcher Perry Osborn, Chain of Life‎^[1], page 163:

     Above, the woolly hippopotamus (Hippopotamus Major) of western Europe; below, the southern elephant (Elephas Meridionalis). Remains of both are found in the riverdrifts of France and Spain […]

   • 1956, Marie Hartley, Joan Ingleby, The Yorkshire Dales‎^[2], page 87:

     Here you will find evidence that over the hills of Craven straight-tusked elephant, slender-nosed rhinoceros, woolly hippopotamus, and ox (Bos Primigenius) once roamed, and ended their days in the Victoria cave, a hyena's den, probably during the tropical period of the Great Inter-Glacial period.

   • a. 1985, Fernand Braudel, Roselyne de Ayala, Paule Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean‎^[3], published 2001, page 25:

     It is true that the "woolly hippopotamus", now extinct, was adapted to a cold climate!...In 1960, excavations in Larissa in Thessaly brought to light "mammoth and hippopotamus bones as well as tools made of flint and bone […]

   • 1992, W. R. Mitchell, Three Peaks and Malhamdale‎^[4], page 7:

     Below these deposits was a thick layer of glacial clay, separating the comparitively modern remains from the bones of pre-Ice Age creatures such as woolly hippopotamus, slender-nosed rhinoceros and straight-tusked elephant, which doubtless roamed the district during the warm inter-glacial period.