Oleg Zabluda's blog
Sunday, December 09, 2012
 
Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) "бегемот обыкновенный" is a very strange animal.
Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) "бегемот обыкновенный" is a very strange animal. Order even-toed ungulate (отряд парнокопытные), suborder non-ruminant (подотряд свинообразных (нежвачных)). Hippo-potamus means "river horse" in Greek, but would be more correctly called "river swine" (hoiropotamus) "свинопотам". It is not kosher, either way.

Hippos are herbivorous, but why do they have such enormous and sharp canine teeth and vicious temper?

I think, since they live in the river, it is to fight alligators. A 1.5-3.0 ton hippo will bite right through a 1 ton alligator. But why hippos hang out in the river in the first place? They don't feed in the river, with only minimal consumption of aquatic plants, they only crap there, bringing the nutrients in.

Hippos leave the water at dusk (otherwise they dry up) and travel up to 5 mi inland and then spend 4-5 hours grazing on short grass, their main source of food, consuming 70kg of it each night, before coming back.

I think, it's because they they hide from lions, because hippos are just not quite big enough. Animals which don't hide from lions are White Rhinoceroses (odd-toed ungulates, 3.5-4.5 tons) and African bush elephant (4.5-6.0 tons).

Hippos seem to be right on the boundary of what a pride of lions can take, and so are giraffes (a kosher even-toed ungulate ruminant) with males weighting 1.6 tons and having a vicious kick.
 
Hippos reach sexual maturity not by age, but by weight (~600kg for females)

Альфред Брем в своём труде «Жизнь животных» (1860-е годы) писал:
"""
Только с наступлением ночи великан вылезает из воды и, сокрушая все на своем пути, отправляется на прибрежные луга или поля туземцев, которые и опустошает немилосердно, не столько съедая, сколько вытаптывая.[...] Будучи раз чем-нибудь раздражен, бегемот долго помнит обиду и старается отплатить обидчику.
"""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Обыкновенный_бегемот
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus

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