Despite their huge teeth hippos are grazers, walking up to thirty kilometres a night to find food during dry times. Hippo can eat up to forty kilograms of food a night. When grass is scarce hippo have been known to other foods such as sausage tree fruits.

Hippos do not move in pods to graze. They may be seen in close proximity to each other when food is concentrated but generally they dine alone.

Hippo mate in water and will give birth on land, keeping their calf hidden for up to two weeks before introducing it to the pod. Their gestation period is approximately eight months.

Hippos supposedly kill more humans in Africa than any other species. When on the attack, they are known to overturn boats and bite canoes in half.

Wild dogs and hippo

There are many stories of hippo chasing off predators in the act of a kill. I observed wild dogs killing a puku on the edge of the Chobe River. Whilst the wild dogs were eating a hippo charged out the water and the dogs moved off. The hippo returned to the water and the dogs approached the carcass, causing the hippo to charged yet again.

This went on for a while until the dogs moved off a distance and lay down. Not long after one of the dogs seemed to get into a game by moving toward the hippo and making it charge. Eventually the hippo gave up and returned to the rest of the pod.

Hippo out of water

Hippos are known to wander great distances at night in search of food. In Botswana, I observed a hippo that had wandered too far from the Linyanti system one night and ended up in the Savuti Marsh area. Its time of arrival in Savuti coincided with a water crisis. The waterholes were dry and many animals were milling around in confusion. The hippo was stranded at one of the dry pans. The days were scorching, adding to the problem.

The most fascinating part of this drama was the other animals’ reaction to the hippo. Hyenas lay side by side with the hippo in one of the concrete troughs in an apparent move to cool down on the concrete. Elephant would walk over, have a look then walk back to the little shade there was.

Let there be life

On the third day, when water finally came through the pipe the elephants kept other animals away from the trough with the dying hippo, even chasing the hyenas away that had sharing the trough at the time. It was an amazing behavioural trait - elephant actively patrolling a water source to help another species in dire need. The hippo recovered and disappeared during the third night.

Although hippos have huge teeth they are solely grazers. They use their teeth in dominance displays and fighting, the results of which can be seen in the scarring on many individuals.