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They’re big, they’re hungry, they’re almost here. Hippos Coming to Adventure Aquarium

By Matt Stringer



If you haven’t seen any hippos lately you’ll soon get a chance: two female hippos are coming to the Adventure Aquarium, which opens May 25. The two hippos, Jenny, 5, and Buttons, 8, will be featured in the aquarium’s West African River Experience exhibit.

Adventure Aquarium is located at the site of the old NJ State Aquarium.

And you know the kids will be asking questions. They always do. So here’s all the information you need to know about these wonderful mammals.

Hippos may look like overgrown pigs, have a name that means “river horse,” but they’re not related to either. Their closest relatives are the whale and dolphin. And that serves them well, since a large portion of their day is spent lounging in pools of water.

Hippos have a lazy way about them, which makes them look harmless, but look again. They’re one of the most dangerous animals in Africa and will attack lions and crocodiles if they stray into their territory. And when they attack they can do substantial damage; male hippos can grow canine teeth up to 1.5 feet long.

They kill humans, too. Usually it happens at night when a person crosses a hippo’s path when it’s grazing, blocking its route to water or when a boat passes too closely to a hippo in water. But, they don’t seek out aggression; they have enough of it amongst themselves.

Male hippos spend their life vying for dominance, trying to fight their way into the position of the dominant male. The reason—reproduction.

However, most of them aren’t successful. Only 10 percent of male hippos ever acquire a harem of female hippos. One dominant male hippo monopolizes his entire territory and keeps a harem of several female hippos and their young. No other males are allowed mating rights. As a result, the other hippos struggle to gain dominance for most of their lives. They’re constantly fighting.

Some males hold on to their territory for up to ten years. Hippos only live on average for about 40-50 years. Being the alpha male has some other advantages, too. “They have the right for the best sleeping position of the beach,” said Bill Barklow, who studied hippos in Africa and is a professor of Biology at Framingham State College.

Females can also be aggressive. Male hippos can pose a threat to calves in the water and have been known to attack them. When this happens, female hippos don’t lie around. They attack the male hippo usually forcing him to submit. Female hippos will discipline young calves as well, pushing and rolling them around with their head until they behave themselves.

But for the most part, female hippos are motherly and nurturing. They even care for calves who are not their own, which is a trait mostly associated with humans.

Underwater, hippos make clicking noises, like dolphins. Above water, hippos communicate their emotions by making groaning, growling, and moaning sounds. “It’s similar to when we scream, moan, or whine. They’re [sounds] typical mammal emotions,” Barklow said. “Most animals don’t have a language or anything like it.”

When hippos are babies they make croaking noises underwater when they’re playing. Baby hippos love to frolic underwater and play games.

Barklow watched three baby hippos in Africa repeatedly knock each other off their mother’s back in a game of King of the Mountain. “I love it when babies play. They play endlessly for hours. They love to go upside down. They also like to spin underwater,” Barklow said. “They can do a lot of acrobatics.”

They don’t lose that sense of playfulness when they get older, either. “I have a picture of one surfing a wave,” Barklow said.

Hippos are vegetarians and feed on a diet of grass: 100 pounds a night of it. They’re nocturnal. At nightfall they’ll leave the water and venture down set paths to graze on short grass. Barklow said hippos feed on antelopes sometimes, “but it’s rare.”

Sometimes this gets them in trouble as humans will hunt hippos for their meat, not to mention their hides and ivory tusks. In Kenya last March, a mob scene ensued after a small hippo was struck by a car. Locals demanded some of the meat and several people were injured in the rush to distribute it.

Two different kinds of hippos exist: the common hippo and the pygmy hippo. The common male hippo can grow up to 7,000 pounds, while the female can reach 4,000 pounds. The pygmy is smaller than the common hippo, weighing in at 550 pounds.

The common hippo lives in countries all over sub-Saharan Africa, whereas the pygmy is confined to West Africa.

Hippos aren’t on the endangered species list, but due to deforestation and human development their range has been severely limited.

They’re now found mainly in national parks in Africa with a few being spotted off the large areas.

Hippos are herding animals. They’re social animals. After the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004 a baby hippo in Kenya was separated from its herd. Flushed by waves down the Sabaki River and then back to the shore the hippo was rescued by park rangers who took it to a wildlife sanctuary, Haller Park, near Mombasa.

When the hippo, named Owen, arrived he befriended a 100-year-old male tortoise, Mzee, and adopted it as his mother. “It was the closest thing to a real hippo,” Barklow said. The tortoise was the same color as a hippo, which made it an attractive surrogate mother.

The two now do everything together and Owen will even cuddle up to the tortoise, copy his actions, and follow him back and forth to a pond. “He has recently been observed displaying some affection towards Mzee by licking his face, which Mzee does not seem to mind,” said Pauleen Kinoti, tourism manager of Lafarge Eco Systems, which manages the animal facility. Baby hippos will generally stay with their mother for four years.

Park officials hope to pair Owen with a lonely female hippo when he gets older. “It is not a guarantee that Cleo will take to Owen as hippos are very territorial. We however expect the best out of uniting them and giving Cleo some companionship,” Kinoti said.

Matt Stringer is the editor of Curious Parents. He can be reached at mstringer@curiousparents.com or at 856.608.1791