Hippopotamus – Third Largest Land Mammal

After the elephant and the white rhinos I come in third as being one of the largest living land mammals. I have very thick skin which alone can weigh a half ton. I am plump and have a bulky body with short stumpy legs. The larger of my species is found in East Africa south of the Sahara – I am the Hippopotamus or commonly know as the Hippo!

 

Facts:

• They live in river swamps and protected areas, along preferred rivers with deep water and reed beds and grasslands.
• They can also be found in salt water areas never river mouths as well as in the lakes in central Africa, spending most of their day in the water close to the shore lying on their bellies.
• They like to lie on the shore in the morning sun.
• My Swahili name is Kiboko.
• My scientific name is: Hippopotamus amphibius, amphibius which means “river horse”.
• In Greek – Hippos means horse, but they are more closely related to the pig, not the horse.
• The small of my species “Choeropsis liberiensis”, known as the pigmy hippo lives in a very restricted range in West Africa. They are shy solitary forest dwellers that are now rare.
• The large Hippo can be 5 feet tall and up to13 feet long, weighing up to 3 1/2 ton, with a mouth that can measure 2 feet across.
• Each of their feet has four toes that are webbed and can splay enough to evenly distribute their weight to support them on land.
• Their body is a grayish-brown and almost hairless except for the few bristles on the tip of their tail and around their mouth.
• The hippo has no sweat gland or sebaceous glands but, it does have an unique gland that produce a red fluid that is very viscous. This leads to the myth that hippos “sweat blood.”
• The hippo relies on water or mud to keep it cool, and the red fluid may have a similar function, but it is often produced in copious amounts when the animal is excited.[1]
• They have long razor sharp incisors and tusk like canines, which are ivory and valued even more than an elephant’s tusks because; they don’t turn yellow with age, and can bite a small boat in half! 
• They are good climbers can travel over step banks. 
• The large hippo is aggressive.
• They are unpredictable.
• They are well adapted to life in the water and can move easily in the water as well as stay under for as long as 6 minutes by closing their nostrils and ears.
• They can be found in mixed groups of about 15.
• They are herbivores, which mean they eat plants, and are very efficient grasser who can eat as much as 100 pounds of grass in a single night.
• They will also eat fallen fruit and occasionally crops such as corn and sugar cane.
• They spend much of their day snoozing on the beach, in the water or in the mud, and rely on the water and mud to keep cool.
• They have keen senses even under water, being very alert to their surroundings

Hippos defecate in the water. Their dung provides essential basic elements for the food chain. Tiny microorganisms feed on it and then larger animals feed on those organisms.[1]

• They can stay under water up to 6 minutes.
• They have a flexible social system which is defined by hierarchy, feed and water conditions.
• Overcrowding can cause a higher level of aggression; the strongest and oldest males are the most dominant.
• Hippos kill more people than any other animal.
• Their yawn is a gesture of threat.
• Males reach sexual maturity at about 7 years and females at 9 years old.
• The have a gestation of about 240 days.
• They give birth to a single your either in the shallow water or on land.
• Their babies weight in at 55-120 pounds at birth.
• The mom’s teach their young t
• Their baby start to eat grass at 3 weeks of age, but they continue to suckle for about a year.
• Their new born can often be seen resting on their mothers back and can swim the moment they are born.
• Their main predators are crocodiles, hyenas and lions for food as well as human for their hide, ivory teeth and their meat.
• They can live up to 20-40 years in the wild and 50 years old in captivity.

Trivia:

George Washington’s false teeth were made from Hippo tusks.

 Sources:

http://moray.ml.duke.edu/projects/hippos/JustForKids/HippoFacts.html

http://www.didyouknow.cd/animals/hippo.htm

http://www.outtoafrica.nl/animals/enghippo.html?zenden=2&subsoort_id=2&bestemming_id=1

Other sites to visit:

http://moray.ml.duke.edu/projects/hippos/JustForKids/HippoFacts.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9425/interesting_hippopotamus_facts.html

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AfricanSavanna/fact-hippo.cfm http://www.geocities.com/beccerz_99/hippofacts.html

 http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/Animal-bytes/animalia/eumetazoa/coelomates/deuterostomes/chordata/craniata/mammalia/artiodactyla/hippopotamus.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus

 

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[1] http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/Animal-bytes/animalia/eumetazoa/coelomates/deuterostomes/chordata/craniata/mammalia/artiodactyla/hippopotamus.htm

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[1] http://www.outtoafrica.nl/animals/enghippo.html?zenden=2&subsoort_id=2&bestemming_id=1

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