Hippopotamus is the term for mammal native to Africa that is easily recognizable thanks to body fat, large snout, short legs, his dark skin, and his habit of spending time with a soak in the water. Bathing habit is precisely what led to the hippopotamus has the English name "hippopotamus", said uptake of the Ancient Greek language, which means "river horse". But despite having frills name of the horse (hippo), hippos did not have a kinship with horses.
Hippopotamus is the largest land animals after elephants on the African continent. Its length reaches 5.4 m, while weighing up to 3.6 tonnes. By looking at her physical appearance is stout and short-legged, hippos seem to only be able to move slowly. But in fact, the hippo was able to run up to speeds of 30 km / h if necessary! Hippopotamus also has an aggressive behavior and did not hesitate to attack other animals that are nearby. Mouth and front teeth were large hippopotamus make any creature that is attacked by a hippo could suffer a severe injury. Behavior which then makes the animal as fierce crocodiles, lions do not even dare to look for problems with adult hippopotamus if not forced.
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Bongsor bodied animals can be found in fresh waters, marshes scattered in central Africa, east, west. In the past, the hippopotamus is believed to have a wider distribution can be found in southern Africa and the Nile River to the north. Interestingly, although hippos spend most of its time in the water, hippos are not animals who could swim. Consequently, the hippopotamus was more like spending time by wading in the fast-flowing waters are calm and not too deep.
The main reason hippos spend most of its time in the water is so hippos can avoid the scorching heat during the day. As a further form of protection against the sun, glands in the skin of hippos produce a kind of slimy liquid that absorbs ultraviolet waves and inhibit the growth of bacteria on the skin. The liquid is colorless when first released by glands, but when exposed to sunlight the liquid turns red within minutes. That is why in the past, the liquid is known as the "sweat blood" (blood sweat).
Herbivorous CRUEL AND DANGEROUS
Hippos are herbivores in which plants were the main food is grass growing around the waters in which they live. In the afternoon, hippos spend time with rest while bathing. When the sun goes down, then the hippo out of the water to eat. Hippopotamus also want to eat the carcasses of the animals, but it is rarely done by hippos because their digestive systems are less suited for digesting meat. If you need to clean yourself hippopotamus, hippopotamus will open a big mouth in the water so that the remnants of food stuck in the inside of the mouth of the hippopotamus could be eaten by small fish.
Hippopotamus display behavior that resembles a social animal. Some tail hippos that live in the same habitat will form the group consisting of 10-100 tail of a hippopotamus. The group usually consists of a male hippo as its leader and some tail female hippopotamus and her children. Not infrequently fight broke out between two tails male hippopotamus because the fight over the same area. But the battle between fellow male hippopotamus rarely led to fatal because when one of 1 hippopotamus successfully demonstrate the superior physical strength, the hippopotamus which one normally would relent and go away to another place.
Hippopotamus does not have a specific mating season, but the hippopotamus has kencederungan to breed more frequently during the rainy season. Hippopotamus who had just had sexual intercourse with males will enter a period of gestation for about 8 months. After that, the female will give birth in the water where the number of babies given birth normally only issued once a. Baby hippopotamus later life of its mother's milk until the age of 1 year. The age of sexual maturity in male hippos are 7-9 years old, while the female hippopotamus age of sexual maturity is 8-10 years. Male hippopotamus who have experienced sexual maturity will leave the group to live alone or form a new group.
As a result of its large size and aggressive behavior, hippos do not have a lot of enemies. On the other hand, aggressive behavior also makes hippos often killed by humans. Hippopotamus touted as one of the most deadly animals in Africa as a result of the many people who were killed by a hippopotamus. Along with the reduction of wildlife habitat and the development of human settlements, the friction between hippos and humans became more and more frequent. In addition to the safety factor, other reasons humans kill hippos is to take the skin, flesh, and fangs. By animal conservation organizations IUCN, hippopotamus population is now considered to be included in the category of "vulnerable".
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