Hippopotamus is the third largest land animal besides elephants and rhinoceroses. Adult male hippopotamus can be up to 4 meters long, with a height of 1.5 meters and a weight of more than 3,000 kilograms. Adult female hippos can also grow to more than 2600 kilograms. Usually, female hippos stop growing around the age of 25, while male hippos grow almost all their lives. It is said that extremely special individuals can even reach more than 6000 kilograms, which is almost catching up with elephants!
Although hippos and fat pigs look alike, their close relatives are not on land. Their close relatives are whales and dolphins living in the sea! The common ancestor of hippopotamus and whale is ungulates who lived 60 million years ago.
The earliest hippopotamus fossils discovered so far came from 6.5438+0.6 million years ago. Like whales and dolphins, hippos have been evolving into aquatic animals. For example, hippopotamus's body is hairless, and its skin is easy to crack in the hot sun. So most of the time hippos live in the water, only showing their noses, eyes and ears, and most of their bodies are underwater.
Only in the early morning and evening when the weather is cool will they come to the land to look for food. Hippos have a huge appetite, eating hundreds of kilograms of plants every day.
In Africa, hippopotamus is listed as one of the most dangerous animals, especially male hippopotamus, which is the most violent and often attacks people. Although this animal looks chubby and stupid, its running speed can reach 30 kilometers per hour, which is faster than most humans. Up to now, scientists still can't know the biting force of male hippos, because they are too fierce to cooperate with the test at all!