0 Hippopotamus

 

Animal Unique | Hippopotamus | Hippopotamus is a large, mostly herbivorous mammals in Sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae. After the elephant and the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest existing artiodactyl. Hippopotamus is semi-aquatic, inhabiting rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps. Two hippo species are found in Africa. The large hippopotamus, in East Africa, is south of the Sahara. These social, group-living mammal is so numerous in some areas that "cropping" schemes are used for populations that have become larger than the habitat can keep under control. The other much smaller species of Hippo, the pygmy hippopotamus. Limited to very restricted range in West Africa, it is a shy, solitary forest dweller, and now rare. 

 

Hippopotamus live in water or on land. Their specific gravity, and they can sink or walk along the bottom of a river. Because of their enormous size, hippopotamuses are difficult to weigh in the wild. Females are smaller than their male colleagues. Older males can get much bigger. Male hippos appear to continue to grow throughout their lives, females reach a maximum weight of around 25-years old. Even though they are big animals, hippopotamuses can run faster than a human on land. The hippo can maintain these higher speeds for only a few hundred meters. Despite the fact that semi-aquatic and flippers, an adult hippopotamus is not a particularly good swimmer, nor can it float. It is rare in deep water, where it is, the animal moves through porpoise-like leaps of the soil. 

 

A hippopotamus foot has four webbed toes, which splay from the weight evenly distributed and therefore adequately support it on land. The gray body has very thick skin, which is almost hairless. The hippopotamus has neither sweat nor sebaceous glands, relying on the water or mud to cool off. It is, however, separating a viscous red liquid which the animal skin from the sun protection and possibly a healing agent. Plat, the hippopotamus paddle-like tail is used to excrement, which territory borders marks indicating the status of an individual to spread. The eyes, ears and nostrils of hippopotamuses are high on the roof of the skull. This allows them to enter the water with most of their body immersed in water and mud of tropical rivers to stay cool and prevent sunburn. Hippopotamus have small legs. 

 

Their skin secretes a natural sunscreen substance which is red in color. The secretion is sometimes referred to as "blood sweat," but is neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is initially colorless and red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown. Hippopotamuses spend most of their days wallowing in water or mud, with the other members of their pod. The water serves to their body temperature low, and their skin from drying out. Young hippopotamuses can only stay underwater for about half a minute, but adults can stay underwater for six minutes. Young hippos can suckle under water by a deep breath, closing their nostrils and ears and wrapping their tongue tightly around the teat to suck. With the exception of eating, most of hippopotamuses' lives childbirth, fighting with other hippopotamuses, reproductive performance in the water. 

 

Scientific classification
Kingdom:     Animalia
Phylum:     Chordata
Class:     Mammalia
Order:     Artiodactyla
Family:     Hippopotamidae
Genus:     Hippopotamus
Linnaeus, 1758
Species:     H. amphibius

Hippopotamuses are surprisingly agile and often cross steep banks each night to graze on grass. They leave the water in the same spots and graze for four to five hours, one or two miles, with extended trips of up to five miles. The low appetite by their sedentary life, which no high outputs of energy. Like a coral reef fish and turtles, hippopotamuses occasionally visit cleaning stations and signal wide-open mouths, their willingness to be cleaned of parasites by certain species. This situation is an example of mutualism in which the benefits of the hippopotamuses while cleaning the fish receive food. 

 

Although hippopotamuses like to lie close together, they do not seem to form social bonds except between mothers and daughters, and are not social animals. The reason that they are close to each other crawling is unknown. Hippopotamuses are territorial only in water, where a bull in charge of a small portion of the river, on average 250 meters long, with a dozen women. The largest pods can contain more than 100 hippopotamuses. Hippopotamuses seem to communicate verbally, through grunts and bellows, and is thought to exert their echolocation, but the purpose of these sounds is currently unknown. Hippopotamuses have the unique ability to hold their head partially above the water and send out a cry that travels through both water and air, hippopotamuses above and under water will respond. 

 

The name of Hippopotamus comes from the Greek words "hippos" meaning horse, and "potamus" which means river. Though the hippopotamus spends most of the day in the water, it is more akin to the pig than the horse. Hippopotamuses are very aggressive animals by nature, especially when young calves are present. Frequent targets of their aggression include crocodiles, which often live in the same habitat as river hippos. Nile crocodiles, lions and spotted hyenas are known to prey on young hippopotamus. When in a fight, male hippopotamuses with their incisors to each other to ward off attacks, and their lower canines to inflict damage. Hippopotamuses rarely kill each other, even in territorial challenges. Usually a territorial bull and a challenging bachelor will stop fighting when it is clear that one hippopotamus is stronger. When hippos are overpopulated, or when a habitat starts to shrink, bulls will sometimes attempt to kill babies, but this behavior is not common under normal conditions.

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