Learn facts about their strength, their conservation status, where they can be seen and how they are the most dangerous animal in the African Savannah. Here is our popular article that lists more than 37 interesting facts about hippos.
Hippos are not just interesting in regards to what they eat, they are so much more. The information about what hippos eat, and the related habits. Calves continue to suckle for up to 8 months old when they can start to graze at a safe distance from their mother. They close their eyes and nostrils and keep feeding while submerged.īaby hippos start to feed on grass at the of 3 weeks. This is a massive size that needs great quantities of food.īaby hippos (calves) are able to suckle on their mothers for milk underwater. The first verified account goes back as far as 1995 when Dr Joseph Dudley from the University of Alaska while on his visit to Hwangwe National Park in Zimbabwe.ĭr Keith Eltringham confirmed that hippos can eat meat because of insufficient nutrients especially in instances when there are limited sources of food.īaby hippos are born weighing an average of 40 kilograms. PhD student Leejiah Dorward, in a paper he published in the African Journal of Ecology provided a detailed account of watching two hippos feeding on a carcass of a dead crocodile.
Hippos are fundamentally known for feeding on grass, but the recent study seems to contradict this. Here is a good article we made about hippo facts that can give you further interesting insight. This is why they hide in water for much of the day, also why they secret a pinkish around their ears and eyes. Hippos have no sweat glands and therefore the hot sun is bad for their skin. Hippos feed during the night because they need protection from the hot savannah sun. They follow these feeding trails every day to feeding and trace back when the sun comes up high. The feeding area can expand to as far as 2 miles from the water, they feed in a circle pattern and this pattern keeps getting wider and wider.Įven though the hippos stay together in groups and also mate from the water, they do prefer feeding individually. Hippos take the same path for grazing in the evenings. This increases the time for the body to absorb all the vital nutrients required to keep the hippo alive and to stay for longer hours before feeding again.Ī hippo’s stomachs are multi-chambered and can store food for a long period of time which explains why they spend a lot of time in water and can only feed for longer periods in the evening. The alimentary canal of a hippo is long which helps to reduce the speed of digestion. The Hippo uses its lips to pull grass and its 20-inch long teeth to chew before swallowing.
They can move long distances of more than 8 kilometres in search of food.ĭuring this nocturnal feeding activity, an adult hippo can eat an average of 40 kilograms of grass. In the evening is when hippos go out of the water for serious feeding. This is because it is much easier and convenient to take short trips from the water during the day to feed and return back when it gets a little hot. This makes a very tiny percentage of their diet.ĭuring the day, a hippo might be seen eating the grass that is found on the banks of the rivers and lakes that they inhabit. To balance their diet out a little bit, hippos will eat some few species of wild fruit. Hippos feed on the same shortgrass that other herbivores like zebras, Uganda mobs, zebras and buffaloes can feed on. This is the common shortgrass found in the savannah game parks. Hippos are herbivores and mainly feed on short grass.
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