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The Then & Theory team

Hippos in London

Giraffes on the bank put this river in Africa, where hippos live today. Hippos once lived much farther north. Under Trafalgar Square in London, building works turned up a hippopotamus tooth about 125,000 years old, along with bones of lions and elephants. That was a warm stretch between ice ages, warmer than the present day, and animals now found only far to the south lived where London stands. When the cold came back, the hippos disappeared from Britain, and wild hippos have not lived there since.

Sources

1. Natural History Museum, “London calling: nine specimens from our city”
2. GeoEssex, “Formation of the modern landscape”