15 February: National Hippo Day

It's National Hippo Day, so here are ten facts about hippos:

1. While scientists in the past classified hippos as being related to Pigs, it is now known that their closest relatives are actually Whales and porpoises.
2. The name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse". A group of hippos is called a pod, herd, dale, or bloat.
3. Males weigh about 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) and females 1,300 kg (2,900 lb). A male weighing almost 2,700 kg (6,000 lb) has been reported. Hippos are therefore the third biggest land mammal after Elephants and Rhinos.
4. Despite spending most of their lives in Water (they do everything in water - sleep, fight, mate, give birth - the only thing they do outside water is eat) they're not as good at swimming as you might expect. They don't even float. Hence they are usually found in shallow water and walk along the river bed with their webbed feet. Nor can they breathe water - they close their nostrils when submerged and have to come up to breathe about every five minutes. The process of surfacing and breathing is automatic, so when a hippo is asleep it will come up to breathe without waking up.
5. Hippos cannot jump, but they can climb steep river banks, and run 30 km/h (19 mph) over short distances. It can also open its jaw to almost 180°.
6. Hippos get out of the water at dusk to eat. They eat grass, rather than anything they might find in the river. They may walk up to 10 km (6 mi) to find short grasses; then they'll spend 4-5 hours eating. A hippo can eat 68 kg (150 lb) of grass each night.
7. It's sometimes said that hippos sweat Blood. They don't, but their skin does secrete a substance which turns Red and then Brown. The secretion is acidic and has the dual function of killing off any Bacteria on the hippo's skin and acting as a natural sunscreen and moisturiser.
8. Hippos usually live for 40-50 years. The oldest recorded hippos in captivity were Donna the Hippo, in Indiana and Tanga, in Munich, who both lived to the age of 61.
9. According to an African folk tale, hippos asked the creator if they could live in the water, but the creator said no, because they'd eat all the fish. Eventually a compromise was reached - the hippos could live in the water, as long as they ate grass and not fish and that they flung their dung so it could be inspected for fish bones. Hippos do not eat meat and use their dung to mark their territory. In another tale, hippos originally had lovely long hair, but a jealous Hare set the hippo on Fire so he had to jump into the water to extinguish the fire, and was then to embarrassed to come out.
10. Hippos are ferocious and may attack boats and even cars. You don't mess with hippos! The ancient Egyptians knew this. Menes, one of the earliest Pharaohs, died after being mauled by a hippo, and according to some theorists, Tutenkhamen could have met the same fate.

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