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May 29, 2007

Wacky Wildlife At The Waterhole

They're cute, they're plump and they're just a tad... pink.

Baby hippos within a pod tend to hang out together in what is called a crèche. Literally, a crèche is a daycare.. for little hippos. These young hippos are protected by all the females in the pod.

Hippos have very few predators. As adults, nothing can take them (other than humans), but when they are still little, sometimes a lion or a crocodile will get desperate and try to eat one. Baby hippos are sometimes killed by the dominant male hippo if he has taken over a pod and wants to mate with the mother.

I've seen what happens when a lioness tries to eat a little hippo, and generally it doesn't go well for the cat.

I was once on a safari in Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa. A friend and I were watching a pride of lions at dusk. Earlier in the day, we had seen a very young hippo down by the water with two females. As the sun set, the hippos began to trek out into the grasslands to graze for the night. The pride of lions lay waiting in a gully.

We watched for a long time as a large female hippo munched her way straight towards the lions, the little baby hippo at her side. Then the lions disappeared. The guide said that the lions would never be foolish enough to try to eat the hippo, but we were skeptical. I distinctly remember arguing with the guy... and then I spied it. What looked like a bush about 10 feet in front of the hippos was actually a female lioness. I remember saying, "Hey, that's no bush. That's a bloody lion!"

We bickered over this claim with the guide, eventually betting him free game drives for us the next night. The next thing we knew, all hell broke lose. The female had sprung and within seconds, the adult hippo protecting the baby had thrashed her. The female was fairly seriously wounded in the exchange and left, dragging her left behind her.

We had a nice free drive the next evening.

Little hippos are pretty hardy and they grow up (and out) quite fast. It may seem a bit strange to see giant crocs hanging out near the little pink cuties, but it really does happen that way. I like to think its the crocs being smart enough not to really piss of their neighbors. Water sources, especially in Africa, routinely swell and dry up. Semi-aquatic animals like hippos and crocs are forced into very close quarters, and they have a loosely developed symbiotic relationship.

(1) Hippos leave the water, eat lots of stuff, and poop in the water, replenishing its nutrients
(2) Stuff grows in the water, like fish and plants
(3) Animals come to the water to eat the stuff
(4) Crocs eat the animals that come to the water

In this way, one could argue that hippos are a keystone species.

Despite seeing hippos and crocs together all the time, I still find their strange relationship fascinating. Recently, National Geographic caught some exceptionally strange behavior at the waterhole - hippos following the crocs around and licking them, even when the crocs are busy death-rolling and chewing away on wildebeest.

Is it the salt? The bugs? What's going on here?

Posted by sorsha at May 29, 2007 3:33 PM