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Hippos weigh between 3,000 and 10,000 pounds, making them the second largest animal on land. Despite this enormous size, however, hippos are herbivores and aren’t naturally aggressive. But they ...
Hippos spend most of the day in water to stay cool and hydrated. Just before night begins, they leave the water to forage on land. A hippo will travel 3–5 km (1.9–3.1 mi) per night, eating around 40 kg (88 lb) of grass. By dawn, they are back in the water. [36]
Hippopotamidae is a family of stout, naked-skinned, and semiaquatic artiodactyl mammals, possessing three-chambered stomachs and walking on four toes on each foot. While they resemble pigs physiologically, their closest living relatives are the cetaceans.
Hippos are characterized by large, barrel-shaped torsos, stocky legs, and large mouths containing equally large canine tusks. They are huge and stocky, but despite this frame, can run upwards of
The common hippopotamus gives birth and mates only in the water, but pygmy hippos mate and give birth on both land and water. Young pygmy hippos can swim almost immediately. At birth, pygmy hippos weigh 4.5–6.2 kg (9.9–13.7 lb) with males weighing about 0.25 kg (0.55 lb) more than females.
Even the king of the jungle can have a bad day when trying to cross a river guarded by an aggressive hippo. Three lions found out the hard way that this river crossing was a giant hippo’s territory.
The hippos also sustain an entire food chain. They browse the surrounding savannah by night and return to Mzima's pools by day, where their dung fertilises the water. Fruiting trees such as date and raffia palms , waterberries and figs grow beside the water, using their submerged roots to absorb nutrients.
Linnaeus classified this tapir as Hippopotamus terrestris and put both genera in the group of the Belluae ("beasts"). He combined the rhinos with the Glires, a group now consisting of the lagomorphs and rodents. Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723–1806) first separated the tapirs and hippos in 1762 with the introduction of the concept le tapir. He ...