Oh I have so got to get me one of THOSE outfits :-)
I am sure you will look very fetching, in a menacing sort of way...
He may have been lucky none of them were feeling ... frisky.
Anyone else out there for whom hippos *still* conjure up allusions to a certain mother in law? Super, CJ.
Three comments before the inevitable Hippo Rape comment.
I thought it would be less.
They are bloody dangerous I'm told.
Screw that Disneyesque BBC Station Identification filler.
You'd think that Lions or Elephants, snakes and rhinos would be the big people killers, but no It's Hippos.
Outstrips the rest by mile apparently.
Has this berk never heard of TCP?
Evolutionally, I'm told, the hippo is an oddity. Its major behavioral impulses have not evolved or conformed to its physical progression. The pygmie hippo is the progenitor of the 'regular' hippo? and deep down every hippo remains a 3ft long sausage with an inferiority complex wired to go absolutely batshit crazy at the slightest provocation or whim, even though they are sturdier than a Ford Vauxhall; and that just aint right.
"I'm used to working with crocodiles. They are my comfort zone. Hippos are much more stressful."
I have a friend who went hunting in Africa a few years ago, for his first time. He wanted plains game, which I guess is similar to our elk in size and toughness. No problem. Lions or other predators? No problem: a good guide/Professional Hunter and proper gunhandling skills go a long way.
But hippos? Them's too dangerous for a first-time visitor to Africa. He couldn't find a single outfitter that would take him for hippo because of exactly that. They're big, tempramental, and on dry land a human ain't gonna outrun them.
The aggression is a good thing for hippos Elizabeth.
If they were easy going, lion packs or croks might pick them off.
But as soon as hippo sees something that might be a threat the attack goes in.
It does not give the threat time to do anything.
Do not wait for the foe to bite some soft part of you - attack using your speed, terrible bite, and vast size to tear and crush the threat.
A charging hippo is hard for a foe to target - the foe will most likely bite some strongly armoured part of the hippo (the skin is rather tougher than ours).
Meanwhile the hippo is smashing the foe to bits in seconds - and then turning to the next foe.
Yes a hippo can bite a lions head off - and yes a kick of body slam will cripple any lion.
But without the aggression a hippo would not be able to do these things fast enough.