Charles Cooper, age 12, of Dorchesters
To what family does the hippopotamus belong?
It is Sunday afternoon at the zoo. You have to poke your way through the crowd around the big cage with the glass front, For Mr. Hippo is a favorite attraction ‑ and he knows it. He opens his prize‑winning mouth up wide. He oozes a pinkish goo as though he were sweating blood, His name plate reads Hippopotamus, which, translated, means river horse.
No, he is not related to a horse. Though he is mighty fond of the water he is no kin even to a sea horse, He has a family all to himself, or almost. There are only two cousins in the Hippopotamidae family‑ They are our big smiling fellow and the pigmy hippo,: The pigmy hippo is very like his big cousin except that he is only as bulky as a couple of mules ‑ to whom he is not related.
There was a time when the big hippo was more plentiful. His ancestors shared life with the cave men in Europe. Now he lives only in certain lakes and rivers of Africa ‑ except when he is lucky enough to get a job in a zoo fascinating people. There he needs special conditions, There must be plenty of room, warm air conditioning, water in which to wallow and over 100 pounds of food a day.
Full grown, Mr. Hippo is about 12 feet long. He stands four and a half feet tall at shoulder level. Most amazing is his bulk, Old Smiley may weigh up to four tons. You might tell him that the whale has a bigger mouth. But the old charmer will tell you that he has the biggest mouth you are ever likely to see, the biggest of any land animal, second biggest in the world, And those 24 huge teeth are used as ivory. They are buried well in the guts so you can see only the tops. Some of them weigh five or six pounds apiece
Mr. Hippo has a lot to say. He puffs, blows, snorts, grunts and even bellows, This .and the pink sweat might make you think that he finds his huge bulk uncomfortable. Not at all. His massive bulk is carried on short, stumpy legs and his tummy sometimes trails the ground. Yet he can out‑run you and even break into a gallop, And don't let him fool you about sweating blood: He oozes a pinkish oil to protect his bare hide in the air.
In the water, the hippo tan certainly out‑do you. Forget if you can the prize winning mouth and notice how the nostrils arid eyes are close to the front of the big face. Mr. Hippo can swim or float for hours with just his nose, eyes and ears above water. He can also sink like a stone when he chooses, Then the nostrils shut like valves. He usually stays under water about two minutes but he can stay down half an hour.
What does he do down there? He can run along the bottom at eight miles an hour and he is looking for food. Mr. Hippo is a vegetarian and feeds on reeds and water plants. At night he often comes ashore looking for food; Those teeth are wonderful for uprooting plants. They are useful when the crocodiles get too ambitious. The hippo can bite a crocodile in two with one snap of his mighty jaws, However he won't eat the little nuisance because Old Big Mouth never touches a bite of meat,