From Steve Gettle
“Battle Royale” - Hippopotamus - Luango National Park, Zambia
This was one of the most epic battles I have ever witnessed in the natural world. It simply amazes me the power it took to lift the 3,000 lb bull off the ground like that. These two went at it hard for about a half hour, they were a bloody mess at the end.
Good Luck and Good Light! Steve
Image: Hippopotamus - Luango National Park, Zambia Nikon Z9, 600mm TC, 1/1000 @ f10, ISO 640, Image cropped 20% for final composition
Hippos are absolutely terrifying. 2-4% body fat, they are pretty much thousands of pounds of pure muscle.
I am a huge fan of hippos, and I think they are the true king of beasts. Those giant teeth, crushing jaws, surprisingly quick top speed, equally dangerous on land and water, and one of the few animals that will go after humans, they are very intimidating animals.
With that said, I did get to boop a hippo, and that is one of my favorite accomplishments ever. I thought it felt like a giant strawberry. Leathery, but smooth, and the little dimples where the whiskers come out reminded me of the seeds.
Their enclosure behind the scenes of their exhibit looked straight out of Jurassic Park, with 4" steel bars on everything and all types of mechanical gates. I also got to feed them, and it was like throwing food down a huge garbage shoot. It was fun in that scenario, but if those huge bars weren’t there, that would be quite the terrifying last sight.
That’s an awesome opportunity! I would still be scared to do it even to a hippo in a zoo hahaha.
I am normally a fairly cautious person, but put an animal in front of me and you are almost guaranteed a “hold my beer” moment. 😄
Also, more terrifying than that, every once in a while, Jim Carrey comes crawling out of one.
Nah, that’s a trait of rhinos, not hippos.
Though they look similar in some ways, rhinos are odd-toed ungulates, making them relatives of horses and tapirs, while hippos are even-toed ungulates most closely related to cetaceans like whales and dolphins.
Theuvd definitely look hungry hungry…
They certainly don’t look like they’d be strict vegetarians, do they? 😊
Humans are the only animals that will voluntairally turn down perfectly good meat when hungry.
Calories in > calories out is the only way animals and pre-industrial humans managed to wake up the next morning. Having a choice in what you eat or don’t is probably one of the greatest accomplishments of our species.
“On occasion, hippos have been filmed eating carrion, usually near the water. There are other reports of meat-eating and even cannibalism and predation.” From Wikipedia
That was a pretty interesting read. I looked to see if I could find more recent info, and it all seems to be coming from the same person, Joseph Dudley. The most recent report of his I found, from 2015, lists 17 cases.
Dudley’s first report, the one linked in the Wikipedia article, highlights how much there still is to learn about animals we think we know. Hippos are pretty well studied, yet before the first incident in the 1990s, there was no documentation at all about hippo carnivory.
We can find a number of reports of other vegetarians eating meat, I know I have seen photos and articles of rabbits and deer doing it, but it usually seems to come down to food shortages or other environmental stress, though not always.
From one article on hippo cannibalism observations:
From Nat Geo
David Pfennig, a biologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said that there are certain advantages to eating a member of your own species.
“It’s a perfectly packaged form of nutrients you’re likely to need,” he said.
Interesting! I didnt realize meat eating is widespread, if rare, among other herbivores.
Never underestimate the will to survive!
In reality, yes they do. They have large flat teeth to grind fibrous vegetables instead instead of sharp teeth to rip apart meat and flesh
If my childhood taught me anything… They only eat small plastic balls, and you have to smack their ass to get them to eat those
You reminded me that when I was browsing new releases this last weekend there was some hippo themed movie on the list (Hungry). I looked it up, and while not the Hungry, Hungry Hippos movie that has been in limbo, this one referenced the American Hippo Bill, which sounds like it would have been…interesting…had it been enacted.
House Resolution 23261, also known as the “American hippo bill”, was a bill introduced by Representative Robert F. Broussard of Louisiana in 1910 to authorize the importation and release of hippopotamuses into the bayous of the state.
Broussard argued the hippopotamuses would eat the invasive water hyacinth that was clogging the rivers and also produce meat to help solve a meat shortage in the United States. The chief collaborators and proponents of Broussard’s bill were Major Frederick Russell Burnham and Captain Fritz Duquesne. Former President Theodore Roosevelt backed the plan, as did the United States Department of Agriculture, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, which praised hippopotamus meat as “lake cow bacon”.[6][4] William Newton Irwin, a researcher for the United States Department of Agriculture recruited by Broussard, told Congress that the bill could add one million tons of meat to the yearly American supply, and further suggested that more exotic animals should be imported for the same purpose, including dik-diks, rhinoceroses, African buffalo, Tibetan yaks, and Manchurian pigs.
Although the “American hippo Bill” developed a broad base of support, it was never passed by the US Congress.
Ouch! My TMJ hurts just looking at that.
The jaw doesn’t seem the most comfortable place to apply that much weight to.
Now, Kith.
Now kiss! No, not like that!
😆
