Transcript:

Today on Animal Fact Files we’re talking about hippos. The name hippopotamus means “water horse” though these ponies have put on a few pounds! With adult male hippos reaching more than 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms) in weight, they easily outweigh any horse. Even female hippos, who only reach about half a male’s weight when full grown, still rival the heaviest of horses. That being said, hippos are still only considered the third heaviest of living land mammals - and we’ve previously discussed the second highest ranking members. Of course, maybe “land” mammal is a slight misnomer, because these animals love water!

There are common hippos and pygmy hippos. These two species are from the same family, but different genera. Today we’ll focus on common hippos and save the other species for a future episode. Common hippos were once found in just about any adequate water system in Africa south of the Sahara. Nowadays, they’re found in fragmented populations, with most individuals found inside protected habitats.

Hippos themselves are protected from hunting, though they are illegally hunted for the ivory found in their giant teeth or in persecution over agricultural crops or livestock. Many areas where hippos once lived have been replaced with agricultural landscapes which has caused rifts between people and the hippos living there. This can be a concern, because hippos are known for taking down human beings, however there’s more to these giants than their raging reputations.

Hippos spend most of their days in water but come out at night to eat. They may travel miles to an optimal eating spot. Here they’ll consume mostly grasses, though they’ll eat other plant material if food is scarce. Like dugongs, hippos have muscular lips designed for chomping down on these grassy plants. Before the sun comes up, hippos will make their way back to their water holes where they’ll spend the day resting. Hippos hang out in pools of water so they can avoid the heat of the blazing sun.

They have thin skin that can easily become dried out, so being near a source of water is imperative. There are also reports that hippos sweat blood. This is inaccurate. Hippos don’t sweat at all, but they do release a mixture of chemicals over their skin that quickly turns red when exposed to the sun, so it does look like the hippos are sweating blood, but really the mixture is more like self made sunscreen.

The size discrepancy between male and female hippos is slightly unfortunate when considering the way males brute their ways into mating with females. Male hippos will be in charge of protecting a group of females, and they’ll fight each other over breeding rights to the girls. The canine teeth in a male hippo can double the length of a female’s, and the boys can really dig into each other when the fighting gets bad.

When a male secures his place above the other males, he’ll check females to see if they’re giving off the chemical cues to indicate they’re ready for mating. If a female is ready, the male will push her into deeper water, snap his jaws at the back of her neck, and hold her under the water while they mate. Honestly it seems a little mean, but that’s nature.

The female will gestate almost a year, and when she’s ready to give birth she’ll remove herself from the group and won’t return until her baby has reached a few weeks of age. Baby hippos are able to swim and even nurse underwater because their nostrils can close while nursing. The babies are the most vulnerable and may be taken by lions, hyenas, or crocodiles, but they have the protection of their mother, their group, and their bossy father, so they usually make it to adulthood. If everything goes well, hippos can live to be more than fifty years old.

For more facts on hippos, check out the links in the description. Thank you to gregory Murphy and jogalfaith for today’s request. Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files.