Hippos.
A cute animal. Sits in the water all day. Lazy. Big, slow and harmless. Sleeps with a smile on its face.
Even house hippos - timid creatures.
A cute animal. Sits in the water all day. Lazy. Big, slow and harmless. Sleeps with a smile on its face.
Even house hippos - timid creatures.
Think again!
One of my most-anticipated moments ever since I knew I was coming to Botswana was seeing a real live hippo. Fortunately for me, this happened early on in my 8-month stay - I heard hippos outside in the dark one night, the next day I saw one for real and dared to go within about 50 metres of it, and then that same night I heard a hippo right outside the tent where we were sleeping. It was all quite the exciting series of events!
Since then I have seen and heard many more hippos in my travels around Botswana - many in Chobe National Park, at least 10 while boating on the Delta one weekend (we may have gotten just a little too close for comfort to these ones), and several on the floodplains right outside our new house, which we hear almost every night grunting and splashing in the water. And I still continue my quest to see more hippos - I rush out to try to see them in the water when I hear their sounds at night.
Since then I have seen and heard many more hippos in my travels around Botswana - many in Chobe National Park, at least 10 while boating on the Delta one weekend (we may have gotten just a little too close for comfort to these ones), and several on the floodplains right outside our new house, which we hear almost every night grunting and splashing in the water. And I still continue my quest to see more hippos - I rush out to try to see them in the water when I hear their sounds at night.
Despite my excitement and fascination over hippos and my desire to see them up close, this could be a risky obsession…hippos are actually extremely dangerous!
A good example, to the left is a boat I saw first hand that had been taken down by a hippo. Luckily the man sitting in the boat survived, but the same hippo also completely drowned a mokoro canoe, and not all swimmers are that lucky - if not drowned or crushed by the hippo, they are often taken by crocodiles.
Hippos are considered to be the most dangerous animal in Africa due to their aggressive nature, and they kill more people than lions, tigers and alligators combined. They can easily outrun humans, clocking speeds up to 30 km/hr over short distances. Despite their seeming ferocious nature, hippos are actually herbivores, so while they have large teeth to bite or attack other animals when they feel threatened, they would not be able to digest another animal.
They are the third largest land mammal by weight (after elephants and rhinoceroses), weighing between 1.5 and 3 tonnes. Their weight can be attributed to the fact that their bones are not hollow. This means that hippos do not actually float or swim in water, but walk along the bottom. So when you see a hippo's head and back arched out of the water, they are actually standing. Hippos pose the greatest threat when they are in shallow water, standing on the bottom, but unseen to boats and mokoros passing on the surface.
Hippos are considered to be the most dangerous animal in Africa due to their aggressive nature, and they kill more people than lions, tigers and alligators combined. They can easily outrun humans, clocking speeds up to 30 km/hr over short distances. Despite their seeming ferocious nature, hippos are actually herbivores, so while they have large teeth to bite or attack other animals when they feel threatened, they would not be able to digest another animal.
They are the third largest land mammal by weight (after elephants and rhinoceroses), weighing between 1.5 and 3 tonnes. Their weight can be attributed to the fact that their bones are not hollow. This means that hippos do not actually float or swim in water, but walk along the bottom. So when you see a hippo's head and back arched out of the water, they are actually standing. Hippos pose the greatest threat when they are in shallow water, standing on the bottom, but unseen to boats and mokoros passing on the surface.
Hippos are semi-aquatic mammals, spending most of their day in the water to escape the heat of the sun (their thick skin dries out very easily), and their nights grazing on land. Hippos are actually born underwater, so they learn to swim before they learn to walk, and they are territorial only in water, not on land. This territorial nature is what causes their aggressive behaviours -- you do not want to be between a hippo and water. Hippos communicate through a series of grunts and bellows, and have been said to practice echolocation. They have the unique ability to hold their heads partially above the water and send out a cry that travels through both water and air. | |
As I await my next hippo encounter, I will leave you with this - a recording of some of the hippos we heard the night we camped out in our backyard (turn the volume up!).
*Photo credits for some of the hippo pictures to Bailey Burgsma and Coralie Goulinet-Mateo ...my camera decided it was going to stop zooming 2 months after arriving in Botswana, and you don't want to be THAT close to a hippo to get such a good picture.