The Hippo
Massive with a capital “M”
Did you know that common hippopotamuses (“hippos” for short) are the second-largest land animals in the world? At 5,000 to 7,000 pounds, the only animals heavier than hippos are elephants! In fact, hippos have a mouth so big that it makes up almost a third of the animals’ body size, giving the head alone a weight of about 1,000 pounds. When threatened, hippos open their gigantic mouth to display four incredibly sharp tusks, each up to a foot long.
Hippos are pachyderms. In other words, they are large hoofed mammals with very thick skin. Together, elephants, hippos, and rhinos make up the pachyderm family. Despite their massive size, hippos are great swimmers! Living in lakes and rivers, hippos spend most of their time in the water—sleeping, fighting, mating, and even giving birth in the water. As a result, hippos’ eyes, ears, and nostrils are all placed on top of their head so that the animals can see, hear, and smell when almost completely submerged underwater. So why spend so much time in the water? Hippos keep cool during the day by staying in the water. But they also have another way to handle the African heat. There used to be a hippo hype that said these animals could sweat blood. But in reality, hippos can’t sweat at all—they have no sweat glands! To help protect hippos from the sun, their skin oozes a sticky pink fluid that acts like a sunscreen and prevents sunburn.
Although hippos spend most of their time in the water, they come on land at night to feed on grass. Using their wide mouth like a lawnmower, hippos cover a very large area of grass, grazing it down to a few inches from the ground and eating up to 90 pounds of grass in one night. That seems like a lot of grass to us, but when you compare it to hippos’ massive body weight, that doesn’t seem like very much at all! Hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these fascinating animals—hip hippo hooray!
Contents are courtesy of the Chicago Zoological Society, which operates Brookfield Zoo.
