Hippos grazing by day.
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Hippos have a healthy and mostly herbivorous appetite. Adults eat about 80 lbs. (35 kg) of grass each night,traveling up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in a night to get their fill. They also eat fruit that they find during their nightly scavenging, according to National Geographic. If food is scarce, hippos can store food in their stomachs and go up to three weeks without eating.
Although hippos were long believed to be exclusively herbivorous, 2015 study published in the journal Mammal Review found that hippos occasionally feed on the carcasses of animals, including other hippos.
Female hippos have a gestation period of eight months and have only one baby at a time, according to the San Diego Zoo. At birth, the calf weighs between 50 and 110 lbs. (23 to 50 kg). For its first eight months, the calf nurses while its mother is on land, or it swims underwater to suckle. When it dives, the calf closes its nose and ears to block out water. All hippos have this ability. Hippos also have membranes that cover and protect their eyes while they are underwater.
The median life expectancy of a hippo is 36 years.
The hippopotamus is considered the world’s deadliest large land mammal. These semiaquatic giants kill an estimated 500 people per year in Africa, according to the BBC. Hippos are highly aggressive and are well-equipped to deliver considerable damage to anything that wanders into their territory.
For example, in 2014, a hippo attacked a small, unsuspecting boat filled with Nigerian school children, killing twelve students and one teacher on board, an Australian news outlet reported. Conflicts between humans and hippos also occur when hippos wander onto land in search of food.