While a hippo might resemble a pig, you will be surprised to know that the closet mammal relatives to the hippo are not four footed. In fact, they aren’t even land animals. The porpoise and the whale found in the oceans are the hippo’s closest kin. Told you you’d be surprised. Can you imagine the third largest land animal being related to a whale?

It may not look so, but hippos are very graceful in water and excellent swimmers. Remarkably, a hippo can stay submerged underwater for half an hour before it needs to resurface. Remember that a hippo is a mammal and does not have gills that can help it breathe underwater.

However, outside water, the story is quite different. They are content basking on the shoreline and show very little tendency to move. At sunset, they do travel overland to graze and have the ability to 10 kilometers in a night, and on the way they can consume 35 kilograms of grass. That might seem like a conservative diet for an animal its size, but hippos are quite content with their portions. Besides, their sedentary lifestyles don’t require them to eat very much, anyway.

Have you ever heard the myth that hippos sweat blood? Well, there is some truth in this myth. While basking in the sun, their skin secretes an oily liquid that’s red in color. The purpose of this secretion is to keep the hippo’s hide moist when it is out of water and also provide protection against germs. It’s this secretion that looks like blood, giving rise to this myth.

As far as their social organization is concerned, hippos have quite a flexible set up, which is defined by food and water conditions and hierarchy. They usually co-exist in a group of 15 individuals held together by a territorial bull. Females give birth to one calf every two years. Hippo calves can weigh nearly 45 kilograms at birth, and have the ability to suckle not just on land but also underwater by closing their nostrils and ears.

Even though hippo calves begin eating grass within three weeks of being born, they are suckled by their mothers for a year. The mother teaches the newborns to swim and protects them from crocodiles and lions. The calves also climb on to their mothers’ backs to rest.

A lot of people mistakenly believe hippos to be docile animals, probably due to their lazy lifestyle. However, they are amongst the most dangerous animals in Africa. They are capable of running very fast, that coupled with their size, and territorial temperament makes them very dangerous.