It was the only one I missed. The 10k BC hint completely threw me for a loop! I was typing countries that made zero sense geographically, but much more sense on a "first settled" basis. Needless to say, I face palmed this one!
Yeah, the hint has all the information to limit the amounts of guesses you need to make but requires critical thinking! After a bunch of random guesses, I thought about it and narrowed it down to islands that have been inhabited a long time that were somewhat near the geographic range of normal elephants and hippos!
I thought the mini animals answer was going to be somewhere near Indonesia. So I was just guessing islands like Sunda, Mindanao, Borneo, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Bali, Timor etc.
Well well well, the first time I have fluked an answer to another question when the yellow box operates. I thought I was guessing Cyprus to the Levant question but I left the yellow box on the 10000 years hippopotamus question by mistake, and Bingo. I must go buy a lottery ticket today.
Would have never guessed the Cyprus question, if I hadn't visited the country few years ago and read exactly this fact in a tourist guide about the history of the island.
P.S. I really like the hint.