HIPPOPOTAMUS: They’re Hard to Spot
Posted by admin - 03/09/10 at 06:09 pm
SafariKay.com has been updated with a new article HIPPOPOTAMUS: They’re Hard to Spot by Chitraparna Sinha.
If you’ve ever been on a safari you already know that it’s pretty unusual to see a hippo out of the water. That’s because they love the water and among other things it keeps them cool and helps keep biting insects off of them. They usually are out of the water at night, but in many places you are not out at night on safari so you’ll miss them when they are on land.
As of now, there are two species of hippopotamuses (Hippopotamus amphibious) found in Africa:
- Pygmy hippopotamus – stands about waist-high of a human. It is smaller in size than the river hippopotamus and weighs about 275 kg only!
- River/Common hippopotamus – it is the world’s third largest and heaviest land animal and weighs up to 4,000 kg. It is found in the western, central, eastern and southern parts of Africa; it lives in lakes and rivers near grasslands where the water is slow-flowing but deep. To the people of southern Africa, it is the most feared animal.
Normally, with an outsized head, very broad mouth and pig-like facial features, a hippopotamus has a body shape like that of a barrel with stocky legs and hairless smooth thin skin, accompanied by a short tufted tail.
A hippopotamus spends its days in water/wallowing in the mud and comes out of water at night when it feels hungry. To keep its skin moist in the hot humid climate, it secretes pinkish-colored oil on the skin. [...]
Visit HIPPOPOTAMUS: They’re Hard to Spot on Land – they Spend Daytime in the Water to read the whole article.
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