Hippos didn’t rush out of Central Europe as the ice advanced. New tests on ancient bones reveal these huge semi-aquatic animals still wandered Germany’s Upper Rhine Valley between about 47,000 and 31,000 years ago. Deep into the last ice age.  A global team led by scientists from the University of Potsdam and the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Mannheim, working closely with the Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie, shared the discovery in Current Biology. Rewinding the Exit Clock Standard thinking had common hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) vanishing from Europe about 115,000 years ago, once the mild interglacial ended and harsh cold set in. This latest research, however, which involved specialists from ETH Zurich and other institutions, shows that a small group of H. amphibius held on in southwestern Germany for tens of thousands of years longer, enduring the Weichselian glaciation’s occasional warmer phases. The Upper Rhine Graben acts like a sealed vault. Rivers stacked gravel and sand over millennia, perfectly preserving animal remains. Dr. Ronny Friedrich–the age-dating expert at the Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie–points out that many bones stayed in remarkably good shape, yielding samples ideal for testing even after such a vast stretch of time. DNA and Carbon Say the Same Thing The researchers used both ancient DNA sequencing and radiocarbon dating. Genetic results matched these Ice Age hippos to the same species still found in African waterways today. The carbon dates placed them in a short temperate window that kept the area livable long enough for hippos to persist. Closer genome inspection exposed very low diversity, indicating the European population was small and cut off from relatives farther south. Fossils also place these heat-loving giants alongside mammoths and woolly rhinos, underlining how unusually mixed and diverse Ice Age habitats could be. Time to Dust Off the Old Bones Lead author Dr. Patrick Arnold stresses that hippos did not disappear from central Europe at the close of the last interglacial as long thought to be believed, so every fossil previously assigned to that era deserves fresh scrutiny. Dr. Wilfried Rosendahl, director of the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen and head of the Eiszeitfenster Oberrheingraben project, sees the ice age as far from uniform; local warm pockets created a patchwork environment. He views this finding as one fragment of a larger mosaic and urges similar re-examination of other warmth-dependent species once thought gone much earlier. The study falls under the Eiszeitfenster Oberrheingraben initiative, backed by the Klaus Tschira Stiftung in Heidelberg. Teams continue sifting the Reis collection of Ice Age bones kept at the Mannheim museum, steadily reshaping our picture of Europe’s ancient wildlife, bone by bone. Top Image: Hippopotami that thrive in present-day Africa once called Prehistoric Europe home. Source: Public Domain. References: University of Potsdam. “Hippos once roamed frozen Germany with mammoths.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 October 2025. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251026021740.htm

Scientists probing the bones of Napoleon’s fallen troops have uncovered solid evidence of two brutal pathogens that turned the 1812 Russian retreat into a disaster. Researchers at the Institut Pasteur identified paratyphoid fever and louse-borne relapsing fever in soldiers interred in a mass grave. They shared preliminary findings on bioRxiv July 16, 2025, before publishing the complete study in Current Biology on October 24, 2025. Why the Retreat Turned Into a Death March Napoleon’s invasion of Russia began with a massive force—about 500,000 soldiers—but ended in a frozen graveyard. To assess the disease’s role in the collapse, experts from the Institut Pasteur’s Microbial Paleogenomics Unit joined forces with anthropologists from Aix-Marseille University. Their focus fell on 13 skeletons unearthed in Vilnius, Lithuania, during construction in 2002. Advanced sequencing of the brittle ancient DNA fragments revealed two agents: Salmonella enterica Paratyphi C, which causes paratyphoid fever, and Borrelia recurrentis, the louse-vectored cause of relapsing fever. Both deliver crushing fevers, severe abdominal distress and total fatigue; the relapsing version alternates intense heat with short lulls before striking again. Combined with frostbite, hunger and squalid conditions, these infections created a perfect storm of suffering. Straight from the Bones Four of the 13 individuals tested positive for the paratyphoid strain whilst two carried the relapsing-fever bacterium. This marks the first genomic verification of these microbes in Napoleon’s ranks. Previous studies had already detected typhus (Rickettsia prowazekii) and trench fever (Bartonella quintana), both expected in overcrowded and parasite-ridden armies. The new data sharpens the image of an epidemic-plagued force. The sample size remains small: 13 out of more than 3,000 bodies in the Vilnius pit, and a mere speck compared to the 500,000 troops who entered Russia—around 300,000 never returned. The pathogens were present, but their full toll across the army is still unclear. Reading Yesterday’s Germs to Fight Tomorrow’s Dr. Nicolás Rascovan, head of the Microbial Paleogenomics Unit and the study’s senior author, emphasizes that extracting pathogen genomes from historical remains tracks how diseases rose, spread and faded while revealing the social and environmental triggers. Such insights strengthen modern defenses against outbreaks. The team collaborated with University of Tartu scientists in Estonia to devise a strict validation protocol: match every DNA scrap to phylogenetic trees of current microbes, exclude modern contaminants, and to then confirm identification only when multiple lines converge. The system succeeds even with scant and degraded material. Rascovan notes that ancient pathogen DNA usually appears as tiny fragments, yet their approach reliably verifies the organism and occasionally pinpoints its lineage. History Books Meet Lab Results Contemporary accounts describe soldiers racked by chills, high fevers and digestive agony, with symptoms surging and receding in waves. The genetic evidence aligns precisely with those records. Pair infection with malnutrition, arctic temperatures and relentless marches, and the Grande Armée’s disintegration becomes inevitable. Russian forces eventually expelled the French from Moscow and pressed the advantage. The retreat signaled the start of Napoleon’s unraveling. Top Image: “Napoleon Leaving Moscow” by Pjotr C. Stojanov (circa 1930). Source: CC BY-SA 4.0. References: Institut Pasteur. “Ancient DNA reveals the deadly diseases behind Napoleon’s defeat.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 October 2025. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251026021727.htm