How can that hippo be so fat and simultaneously run so fast?!
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thanks man, that means a lot. you're kinda cool too
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Also, despite being vegetarian, hippos have the largest canine teeth of any land animal.
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I LOVE hippos!!
I saw few hippos in my life, but my parents saw and photographed lots of them in their habitat, mainly in the '70s when my father worked as a freelance photographer =P
They're so cute and funny, they're super fat!!!
But on the other side, they're extremely dangerous and they're super fast in the water.. in many documentaries I saw, they basically scared every other animal around them xD
You know? They inhabit almost all of Africa except the very Northern part and the Sahara of course, but they go from the Nile to South Africa, and still they aren't "least concerned".. they're "vulnerable" for what concerns the conservation status, so they must be protected!
Though, they used to live in Europe in ancient times too, and the most recent theories pair hippos with whales (and not pigs, like scholars did a century ago), putting the split-up between the two around 60.000.000 years ago - in fact, we have many species like the Pakicetus that underwent aquatic adaption while others (we know for instance the Anthracotheres) remained four-legged and amphibians! There are dozens of hippo species that went extinct over the millennia, but this is the most valid theory =P
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They are also quite fast on land, though only for a couple hundreds meter, they can reach up to 30 km/h there.
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They're also spreading in Columbia. Some drug lord kept them as pets and now they're in the wild.
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oh fuck, seriously?! hippos in Latin America? that's crazy! I want hippos here in Italy too!! I really didn't know that xD I was 100% sure that they lived only in Africa, I saw them in European zoos but well they're literally huge, they weigh like 1500+ kg so it wouldn't be so easy to hide them, seems they have adapted to South American climate and forests too! xD that's really awesome, but I should be very cautious if I'll come back there for a trip if there are hippos in the wild xD They have very little predators in Africa but I don't know that much about South America, probably though even there you don't have many big animals that are able to eat them so they'll be spreading xD
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Yeah, Pablo Escobar had a private zoo that included hippos, which were abandoned when he was killed. They have bred and spread to other waterways and the Colombian government doesn't know how to handle them. There was a public outcry when they killed one so they decided not to cull them and made it illegal to hunt them. It's so difficult to sterilize them that it's impractical - they did one at a cost of about 28,000 Euros. They've offered to give them away but Africa doesn't want them in case they carry South American parasites previously unknown to Africa.
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Seriously.
https://www.euronews.com/2018/02/20/colombia-declares-war-on-pablo-escobar-s-hippos
Colombia declares war on Pablo Escobar's hippos
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I like hippos, they are so cute. But I would rather stay safe and don't get too close to them. ;)
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There are quite a few animals that are regarded as friendly or cute that are dangerous.
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Yeah, I had to think immediately of polar bears. So cute and yet so deadly. If you meet one outside of a zoo, one of you will most likely die in the event. :o
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Aw, it's an oddly hairy baby hippo. And it can even jump! How cute.
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Yup, I remember learning that they can easily bite your leg off!
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Cats often think they are another species:
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damn, those jaws could easily crush one's skull...
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Despite being vegetarian, hippos are considered the most dangerous terrestrial animal on the African continent. On average, they are responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 humans every year. Male hippos are exceptionally territorial and will actively defend their section of river or lake from perceived intruders. Females will attack any animal that comes between them and their offspring.
So, you know. Don't mess up with them. Watch this terrifying mammal running in an effort to attack and possibly kill the poor cameraman...
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