Pigmy hippos are native to the forests and swamps of West Africa and are endangered in the wild. Like their larger, more common relatives, pigmy hippos produce pink breast milk.
“Small sculptures of hippos such as this one were placed in tombs in ancient Egypt as reminders of the Egyptians’ love of hunting. Each of the sculpted hippo’s legs was ritually broken in order to render it harmless in the afterlife. In ancient Egypt herds of hippos were a constant threat to farmers’ fields. The first pharaohs hunted hippos in the marshes and eventually drove them far south into Upper Egypt. Hippos became associated with chaos, and the hunt for hippos became a metaphor for how the pharaohs of ancient Egypt could conquer evil.”
Hippos sweat an orange-red substance that was once thought to be blood. It turns out that the thick secretion is a pigmented skin protectant that acts as both a sunscreen and an antibiotic.
Surrounded by cichlids, Daisy the #hippo naps in surprisingly clear water. Hippopotami each produce hundreds of pounds of poop a day, and mostly while they’re soaking. When large groups of hippos congregate in rivers, the sheer amount of excrement that accumulates can result in such deoxygenated water that aquatic life downstream literally suffocates! When hippos are in human care, that preference for pooping underwater can make it very hard for their pool water to stay clear enough for zoo guests to actually see the animals: new exhibits, like this one that opened at the Fort Worth Zoo in 2018, are designed with truly heroic water filtration systems to address that problem. Another solution? Those cichlids aren’t just in the tank because pretty fish add another visual dimension. These African cichlids evolved to live in warm freshwater habitats, and many species are herbivores or detrivores (animals that eat dead organic material): so they help keep the hippo pool clean by nibbling up both bits of hippo poop and the algae that tends to grow in such well-fertilized water. #hippopotamus #fortworthzoo #cichlids #mixedspecies #naptime #herbivore (at Fort Worth, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2mjeoqhojZ/?igshid=cu72gemysjf3
A #hippo soaks up late afternoon sun at the Dallas Zoo. While it may look like she’s floating, you can just barely see she’s actually stretched out on a rock under the water. Hippos are so heavy that they can’t float, and actually walk along the bottom of a body of water instead of swimming. #hippopotamus #zooanimals (at Dallas Zoo) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwnLuXcBMjw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=awh8slpg3dg7
Days 20, 21 and 22 of the Magical March challenge. For circus, a ringmistress that honestly might be my favorite piece so far, for Animal a Hippo, because Hippos are the best imo (also she’s safari themed!), and for Bedroom a little piece of Ariette’s bedroom. It totally counts because she was the girl in the Angel prompt (?)
A pastel and ink gift for Tawaret, a protective and nurturing Ancient Egyptian goddess of the floods, fertility, and rejuvenation and popular deity in household worship all the way into the Roman period.
