Hippopotamus - saveforforest

Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus is a mammal of the hippocampus family. One of Africa's leading animals. The name means'horse living in the river', but unlike the name, the horse is closer to the pig or the cow, and the rhino is closer to the horse. Some of the closest species are the small and mild pygmy hippopotamus, Madagascar, and the dwarf hippopotamus who lived in the Mediterranean. Colombia is classified as a foreign species.

Habitat

As a representative animal of Africa, it inhabited rivers, lakes, and swamps in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, [when?] are inhabited only in national parks or in some regions due to poaching and civil war. It lives in swamps and rivers in high-humidity forests. It spends 18 hours a day in the water, and at night comes out of the water to eat grass. The hippopotamus is the next animal among the land animals that follows elephants and rhinos. It has a body length of 3.7 to 4.6m, a shoulder height of 1.5 to 1.8m, a female of 1.5 to 2.7t, and a male of 2.2 to 4.5t. Females are somewhat smaller than males.

Shape

The four legs are cylindrical and short, with four toes. Because of the small amount of hair on the body, only the hairs on the tip of the mouth, the inside of the ears, and the short tail remain. Some canines are large and 1.5m in length. The hippopotamus travels several kilometers, grazing on the riverside at night. The amount of plants a hippopotamus eats per day is about 60 to 80 kg. A full-fledged hippopotamus can run up to 40 km/h, and a young hippopotamus can run at 30 km/h.

Breeding

The hippo's gestation period is 7 months and a half and usually gives birth to one at a time. The baby hippo weighs 25 to 45 kg at birth and can swim immediately upon birth and feeds the mother's milk in the water. After 4-6 months, they begin to eat grass, and females give birth to their first offspring after 2-4 years. Life span is 40-50 years.

Aggressiveness

The hippopotamus is one of the most dangerous animals in African wildlife. It can cut two pieces of crocodiles, so even the crocodiles don't look too close to the hippopotamus, and the hippopotamus also floated into the sea by a river and cut two pieces of sharks. The hippopotamus has a very large mouth and can be wide open to 100-170 cm. Often flaunting a powerful canine with its mouth wide open to fight the enemy. When two hippos fight, they can hurt each other with fangs. This same fight usually continues until either one gives up, dies, or has a broken leg. No animals attack the mature hippopotamus. However, crocodiles, hyenas, and lions sometimes attack young hippos. The hippopotamus runs into the water when it feels threatened. It secretes a pink body fluid called blood sweat from a small hole in the skin.

Relationships with natural enemies and other animals

As mentioned above, they are crazy people who are close to invincibility, but of course there are natural enemies. First, man is the greatest natural enemy.

In most cases, they are immune to lions' attacks, but they do not completely escape from hunting. The lion's hunting method varies considerably from region to region, so it cannot be generalized, but in some regions, the lion herds are habitually hunting hippos. It is mainly aimed at cubs, but sometimes it is said that they have successfully hunted an adult hippopotamus with a fairly large hunting group. In particular, the only weak point of the hippopotamus is the protruding spine, where many lions have been found hunting successfully by focusing on it. The key to hunting is to paralyze the hippocampus of the hippo, aiming at the disc part of the spine. It is an opponent that cannot be handled by lioness alone, but it seems to be worthwhile if strong males join it. However, he is also a very tough opponent, so he doesn't aim well. It is said that elephants and white rhinos, who are often referred to as the three final bosses of the African animal society along with hippos, are slightly more threatened by natural enemies. In the case of elephants and white rhinos, mature individuals are also hunted by lions. Very rare. In fact, the hippopotamus is a super-large animal, but it is far from being a white rhino, not to mention the elephant, which is a cross-wall.

Even if it comes to this, it is a rather unfavorable figure when it comes to land, and being hit by a lion on the ground is an unfavorable fight against the hippopotamus. Nevertheless, the specifications are so strong that they don't die easily. The hippopotamus is very shallow because the skin's epidermal layer is very shallow, and it is easily worn out when the sun is exposed to it for a long time.

Of course, the case mentioned above is a very unusual case, and under normal circumstances, the entire lion's herd fails to hunt even if it comes against one hippopotamus. The case mentioned above is when a large group of lions raid a hippopotamus that has climbed deep in the middle of the night, and even if the adult hippopotamus is an opponent, the probability of success is very low, and without the males there is no adventure possible. Only the female hippo has enough ability to repel large lions as well as lioness on a one-to-one basis, and the adult hippo is an opponent that can be killed if the lion touches it incorrectly. It is an opponent that cannot be defeated even if it is attacked in a crowd, and it is most likely that lions chew on the hippopotamus on the ground and even reach the water. Moreover, hippopotamuses are so wild animals that they often come off aggressively like elephants. In this case, the lions strike the burinaque line even if they only meet with the hippopotamus. It is quite common to see a male lion with a few lioness patrolling the realm encountering an angry hippopotamus... It is also on the ground.

Even a crocodile can't compete with a mature hippopotamus. Because crocodiles tend to rely on the surprise hunting methods that go back and forth between water and land, hippos with similar lifestyles are enemies who have no way to subdue them. Can't win Occasionally, the sounds of the hippopotamus, such as a hippopotamus that cuts a crocodile, appearing on the Internet, are a bit of an exaggeration, but the hippo's powerful jaw and teeth are very dangerous for crocodiles. In addition, hippopotamuses are basically animals that live in herds, so even if a crocodile approaches them inadvertently, it can never be touched because it can be terrified by monsters that are difficult to handle. The adult hippopotamus is the only beast in the African ecosystem that can easily kill male Nile crocodiles that have grown up except African elephants.

    

In fact, it is basically a Nile crocodile with strong aggression, but it is strangely generous to a hippopotamus, and this applies to young children as well. Indeed, young individuals approach the adult crocodile without fear and bite the crocodile boldly. The same applies to adult hippopotamuses, but mature male hippos don't consider crocodiles as a threat, so they do nothing in places where large crocodiles are full, but rather, crocodiles leave their seats, and to crocodiles who hunt other animals quietly. He approached them and bullied them (...) or bite and tortures the crocodile who had passed by, and the crocodiles avoided their seats without thinking about it. Even the hippopotamus crocodiles that are harassed like this are not young or adult, but giant adults.

Of course, hippopotamuses are not always immune from crocodile attacks, but in the case of pups, they are not afraid to retaliate for the revenge of the crocodiles' mothers. In addition, although rare cases, there have been reported cases of predation by large Nile crocodiles in the case of newly independent females or small females. Even a mature male hippo may be vulnerable to a crocodile attack, after losing in a battle between male hippos in the mating season. At this time, because the hippos fight with the momentum of dying, the defeated individuals are greatly deteriorated due to severe injuries. At this time, they also have a terrible end to be eaten alive by the crocodile swarm that gathered with the smell of blood. In other words, the crocodiles are scared of the adult hippopotamus, and do not touch them.

Predators of smaller sizes, such as leopards, spotted hyenas, and Rikaons, occasionally collide, but if they are alone, the adult is not threatened.

However, the reason why the hippopotamus, which has few natural enemies, is maintained is because young hippopotamuses are all killed when the head changes within the herd. Also, it should be considered that the mother hippopotamus loses its pups when it is young, and loses its pups when it runs stronger than the males. In fact, a mother hippopotamus has more than 15 pups in its lifetime, but usually at most two, three are saved, and the rest are killed by other hippos. In addition, sometimes the mother hippopotamus throws off its young, and in this case, the young hippopotamus mostly feeds alligators.

Writing like this is a complete animal, but loses to the strongest creature on the planet, the elephant. # It's not just about losing, but when an elephant kicks, it rolls around. Both are aggressive animals, but the hippopotamus takes over. It runs on Moses' miracles and powers, and the hippo's large weapon, the tooth, has no choice but to stand on the elephant's ivory. In terms of weight differences, the elephants are on average 3 to 4 times larger than the hippopotamus. Unlike the fight against the undisputed elephant, the fight against the rhino is somewhat rice cake. The winner will vary depending on the species of rhinoceros and the place they are facing. In the case of a black rhino, the hippopotamus has a larger weight, but the white rhino is usually larger than the hippopotamus, and the males boast a size comparable to that of a round-eared elephant or a small female African elephant.

Endangered animals

The hippopotamus was already poached from the mid-19th century, and many had been poached.

In the 1850s, hippopotamuses disappeared downstream of the Nile. The hippopotamus is currently endangered, and in the 1930s, more than 2000 hippos per year were killed in poaching. Although it has decreased a lot compared to the past, poaching of hippos continues to this day. Civil war other than poaching is also a major cause.

The hippo's fangs are very valuable and expensive, and the food crisis has also hunted for hippo meat. In addition, there have been many incidents of mass destruction of hippopotamuses around the farm that interfere with farming to increase farmland.

At present, it is very difficult to see hippos in other areas except national parks and some tourist spots (national parks and tourists, but hippopotamus population is significantly reduced compared to the past).