Elephant crocodiles are afraid of it, and its feces will kill thousands of fish? 90% of people don't know that it doesn't eat meat to fatten itself. If you encounter it in the wild, stay away from it.
This animal is the hippopotamus, the third largest land mammal, it has a long, round horse face, round body, short limbs.
The ears are small, the eyes are as big as 2 copper bells, and under the two huge nostrils are also fat mouths. There is no hair on the hippopotamus, and there is not a single hair on the head, which can be said to be born bald.
Many people may want to ask, what does such a fat hippopotamus eat every day, is the food particularly good? In fact, 90% of people do not know that hippos do not fatten themselves by eating meat, but by eating grass.
Hippos have a great appetite, even if they eat grass, they can eat themselves so fat, it can be said that the quality is not enough to make up the quantity. Hippos like to soak in the water during the day, or lie on the shore, looking lazy.
At night, hippos look for aquatic plants in the water or plants on the shore. An adult hippopotamus can eat nearly 100 kilograms of plants in a day, and a female hippopotamus during pregnancy can eat nearly 200 kilograms of grass and vines in a day.
Don't look at hippos as chubby herbivores, walking wobbly and looking slow, but that doesn't mean it's weak.
On the contrary, hippos are full of lethality all over their bodies. Why do you say that?
First of all, it can be seen from the size of the hippopotamus that it is not ordinary. As the third largest land mammal after elephants and white rhinos, hippos can grow up to 5 meters long and 1.6 meters tall.
Female hippos weigh about 1.4 tons, male hippos weigh even heavier, and some hippos can weigh up to 4 and a half tons. This weight does not affect the running speed of the hippopotamus.
On land, hippos can run at speeds of about 23-30 kilometers per hour. Hippos can hold their breath in the water for 5-8 minutes, and the speed of movement in the water is also very fast, reaching about 8 kilometers per hour.
Furthermore, the hippopotamus has about 40 teeth in its mouth and two sharp teeth in the front row, which can reach a length of 70 centimeters.
In addition, the hippopotamus can open its mouth more than 150 degrees, and the bite force is mainly concentrated on these two teeth, so its bite force is very amazing, which can be as high as 2268 kg.
Once the prey is bitten by a hippopotamus, it is basically impossible to escape, even for crocodiles. However, hippos rarely use their teeth to attack other animals, but usually use this ability in infighting in groups.
So, if you look closely, you will see that there are tattoos on the hippos, which are the scars left by their fighting.
It was said earlier that there is no hair on the hippopotamus, and now we have to talk about the skin of the hippopotamus. The skin of the hippopotamus is very thick, and there is a thick layer of fat inside the skin, which protects the hippopotamus' organs. It also gives hippos a strong buoyancy force and can float easily in the water.
As an herbivore, it is so powerful that it has almost no natural enemies, and even if it is a crocodile, it is no match for hippos. Do hippos bully? It won't. Instead, it is a head-warming hippopotamus.
In the wild, hippos can sometimes be seen carrying turtles across the river, and sometimes birds are seen standing on the body of hippos. Hippos often let a bird called a cow starling stand on top of him, which can help the hippopotamus clean its skin and protect the bird's safety in the wild.
Hippos eat a lot, and the more you eat, of course, you will pull more. When a hippopotamus defecates, it spins quickly with its tail and flung its feces farther away.
If you encounter this situation, you should stay away from the hippopotamus, because the hippopotamus spray can be thrown up to 10 meters away.
If the hippos of an ethnic group agree to defecate collectively in a certain section of the river, the feces discharged can change the color and turbidity of that section of the river in a short time, so the water quality of the water where the hippos live is almost particularly poor.
In the eyes of hippos, the more defecation the hippopotamus sprays farther, the higher the status in the group.
So how does hippopotamus dropping affect downstream ecology? Why is hippopotamus droppings deadly?
There are two ways to talk about this problem.
When the rainy season comes, the rainwater flowing into the river dilutes hippopotamus droppings, and when the droppings reach downstream, it becomes food for the fish.
When the dry season comes, a large amount of feces from hippos accumulates in the water and makes it difficult to flow, turning into a pool of septic tanks.
This beach of septic tanks provides a suitable living environment for the microorganisms in the river, and the microorganisms will eat and decompose hippopotamus feces and then gradually grow, and the oxygen in the river will be depleted, and there will be deoxygenation.
Microbial activity also produces various chemicals, such as ammonium, hydrogen sulfide, methane and carbon dioxide, which are potentially toxic to fish.
Under such circumstances, most fish stocks will face the threat of suffocation, natural selection of the fittest to survive, and fish that cannot withstand such a living environment will go to extinction.
Moreover, when hippopotamus droppings accumulate, there are fewer and fewer resources in the water that can provide energy for fish.
Although hippopotamus droppings can have some impact on downstream fish stocks, this effect is also limited. When some of the fish in the lower reaches suffocate, the remaining fish will be much stronger than before. This is also the embodiment of natural selection of the survival of the fittest in nature.
Compared with the harm caused by hippos to fish, in addition to destroying the rivers where hippos live, some hunters even hunt hippos for their own interests, which is wrong in itself and needs to be corrected.
Respecting nature, respecting wildlife, keeping a distance from wild animals and not harming them is what humans should do. If you have different opinions, please feel free to comment in the message area.
#I'm going to make headlines# #Wonderful animals# #Animals#
