Tour Guide, Iringa, Tanzania
| 2 mins read
I am Stapha Oganga, a tour guide and also a safaris organizer in Tanzania, especially in Iringa town. A bachelor in laws and later joined the wildlife. As said earlier, this article will help you know a little about the Hippo or Hippopotamus. This is the third largest wild mammal after the elephant and white rhino. A hippo is a herbivorous or semiquatic mammal.
You can call hippo by another name known as river horse. Most of the life of hippo spend in the water almost about 90% percent of her lifetime. The hippo life ranges from 40 to 45 years for both male and females. When a hippo is on on the ground, it can run up to 30 km/h speed.
Their weight ranges from 1500 kg - 1800 kg for male and for female, 1300 kg up to 1500 kg. As we said earlier, the life of hippo depends on water due to their skin since they can spend 16 hrs in the water per day. It comes out of the water in evening and early in the morning for food. The group of hippo can be called school, pods, or siege of hippo, and the group often consists of 10 to 30 members of the hippo including males, females and babies.
A hippo has the ability to dive or stay in the water for 5 min without coming up and show his head and when he goes out from the water for looking for food, he can move away from the water up to 10 km looking for food. A hippo has fascinating behaviour pattern where it can stay even for 3 weeks without eating. The gestation period for a hippo is 8 months with one baby weighing 23 kg at birth.