Male hippos often have a habit of biting to death young hippos that are not their own or young hippos in other herds. In addition, male hippos often bite their young to death to force the mother hippo to continue mating with them. After the baby dies, the mother hippo no longer needs to nurse and can continue to mate.
Sometimes male hippos even bite young animals to death to show power over other individuals in the herd.
Young animals are defenseless and when targeted by male hippos, it will be difficult to keep alive, except in some cases where mother hippos can chase away males to protect their babies.
Hippos are one of the largest land mammals in the world. Adult hippos can weigh from 1.5 to 3 tons, have a body length of 3.5 to 4 meters and a height of 1.5 to 1.7 meters. Adult female hippos are usually 200 to 300kg lighter than males.
Even though they eat plants, hippos are still a very aggressive and dangerous animal for humans, especially those who accidentally wander into their territory. Despite their heavy body, hippos can still run at a speed of 30km/h, strong enough to catch up with anyone who encroaches on their territory.
On average, hippos kill about 500 people in Africa every year, making them the animal that causes the most human deaths in the world.
To keep their body temperature low, hippos spend most of their day immersed in water. Therefore, fights over water puddles often occur between hippos and other animals.
Even between hippos, there are often clashes over water puddles. The losers will be forced to leave to find new puddles of their own and their young will be killed by the winning male.
Hippos are currently on the list of endangered animals that need to be preserved. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are currently about 115,000 to 130,000 hippos left in the wild.
Theo Kruger/ITN