Fiona really challenged zoo workers’ hippo know-how! How well do you know your hippos?

You could also call a hippo a river horse. Hippos is Greek for horse. Potamos is Greek for river. The name fits! Hippos normally live in African rivers. They can put most of their bodies underwater and still breathe, hear, and see because their nostrils, ears, and eyes are on the top of their heads. A clear film covers their eyes so they can see underwater. Bibi and Henry, Fiona’s mom and dad, wallow and frolic in a 70,000-gallon hippo pool at the Cincinnati Zoo. But they don’t swim. Hippos can’t! Their bulky bodies can’t even float! Hippos walk underwater.

Need your lawn mowed? Call a hippo! Hippos spend the day in water. At night, they do their real work—feasting on grass. Adult hippos eat about 88 pounds of food each night. That sounds like a lot to us. But it’s just a tiny portion of a hippo’s body weight. In his book, Mr. Maynard says wild hippos sometimes walk for miles at night to find enough to eat.                                                                                  

Hippos are some of the biggest land animals on Earth. Two kinds of hippos exist. Bibi, Henry, and Fiona are Nile hippos—the big ones. They usually weigh between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds! (Pygmy hippos are much smaller. But you still wouldn’t want one to step on your toe! They weigh around 500 to 600 pounds.) When zoo keepers found out Bibi was expecting a calf, they wanted to do an ultrasound to check on the growing hippo baby. A scientist slid under Bibi’s huge belly to do the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed little hippo feet!