Recently, have you brushed an Internet celebrity "bouncing pig", which is a Choeropis liberiensis named Mudeng in a zoo in Thailand, and I have collected a lot of its memes.
Moo Deng is his real name, which translates to bouncing pig, and it was almost named "char siu" or "chopped pig"
I see that everyone still has a lot of questions about it, such as it is so ugly and cute now that it is two months old, and whether it has become a huge ugly thing when it grows up; For example, when you look at it, you find that the place where it lives is so smelly.
What is the difference between a Japanese hippopotamus and a hippopotamus?
The Hippopotamus is a family of artiodactyls in the taxonomic genealogy, and is in the same family as the brother of the Hippopotamus amphibius, but it is an independent Hippopotamus genus, and their relationship is somewhat similar to that of domestic cats and lions and tigers. Compared with hippos with a body of more than one ton or even two tons, the body weight of the hippopotamus is only about two or three hundred kilograms, and the height is about the same as that of a small donkey. Yes, our little hippopotamus Internet celebrity has grown up and is also a round-headed and unpretentious appearance.
The picture above shows the hippopotamus, and the picture below shows the Japanese hippopotamus
图源：HowStuffWorks；wallpapercave
Note: Hippopotamus in a broad sense refers to the entire hippopotamus family, and in a narrow sense, hippos only refer to the species of hippopotamus amphibius, which can also be called common hippos. In the first 10 million years, there were also many extinct fossil species in the hippopotamus family, such as the six-toothed hippopotamus (Hexaprotodon) in China and India, the three-ton ancient hippopotamus (Hippopotamus antiquus) in Europe, and the modern common hippopotamus in the same genus but different species (there are also academic opinions that the Hippopotamus belongs to the genus Six-toothed hippopotamus).
The canines of the bovine hippopotamus are much shorter than those of the hippopotamus, and the upper incisors in the mouth are one pair less than those of the hippopotamus. The Wo Hippopotamus is much gentler than its big brothers, and of course it is also an undomesticated wild animal, and its average weight is more than that of a human, so it is better not to use your hands to rua.
We bouncing pigs are just toothless now, and you wait when you have teeth
Source: Wallpapercave
Many parts of sub-Saharan Africa are home to hippos, but they live only in the humid forests and swamps of Liberia and other places in western Africa. Pygmy hippos are more likely to walk through the forest than their older brothers, so they have a larger distance between their toes and are easier to walk on the ground.
Pygmy hippos are less dependent on water than their older siblings, as evidenced by the fact that their eyes are closer to the sides of their heads than to the top of their heads. Hippos prefer to gather in large groups, while legmy hippos tend to be small or solitary. While the hippopotamus nibbles on the grass on the ground, the bovine hippopotamus eats the plants and the fruits that fall on the ground. They are afraid of the Nile crocodile when they are in the water, and when they are on land, hippos can almost compete with lions, and the legmy hippos have a hard time maneuvering with leopards that are one size smaller than lions.
Hippopotamus with more eyes up
Source: pixnio.com
Hippos are relatively numerous and stable in the wild, and the threat level is vulnerable, just like the familiar lions, leopards, and giant pandas. In West Africa, frenzied habitat development and the thirst for meat have left only a few thousand of them in the wild, and they are as threatened as tigers and Asian elephants.
The colored area is the distribution of the Pygmy hippopotamus in western Africa, and the red color is a historical and extinct area. Source: IUCN
Sweden the Japanese hippopotamus in a zoo, there are not many relatives in the wild, source: huffingtonpost.com
Why are some animals called "Wa XX"?
Let's talk about the meaning of the word "倭" in the name of the species, I believe that friends who often read naturalists have a lot of animals with the word "倭" in their minds. In fact, you guessed probably right, this means that you are small, not Japan, and now the scientific name involves Japan by its name, for example, the quail that often eats quail eggs refers to the Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), the Japanese schistosoma japonicum, which is harmful to the human body, etc.
还有日本须鲨(Orectolobus japonicus)
Source: elasmodiver.com
The "Wa XX" that we are familiar with is the little brother of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). The two are patrilineal and matrilineal, respectively, and are found north and south of the Congo River. Bonobos weigh slightly less on average than chimpanzees and are less violent than chimpanzees. There is also the smallest primate, the lemur (Microcebus murinus).
Juvenile bonobos on the left and juvenile chimpanzees on the right
Juvenile bonobos have distinctly dark faces
Source: bonobos.org
Only one or two weighs a lemur
Source: fineartamerica.com
In the artiodactyl family, the Nesotragus pygmaeus is the smallest member of the bovidae family, weighing only two kilograms.
The new antelope looks like it has the potential to be an Internet celebrity
Source: zelenvsit.cx.ua
In short, there are basically closely related species, species that are smaller than relatives, and the official name of Chinese may have a 倭字. But there is a difference in why they are smaller than relatives.
Some of them are small because they occupy different niches, and in the case of the "big guys" who are very curly on the track, they find another way to reduce their size and reduce the competition for food niches with their big relatives. Others have large relatives on the mainland who have their own "island miniaturization", shrinking to adapt to the smaller distribution area and less food on the island, such as lowland buffalo and mountain buffalo from Sulawesi, Indonesia. There are also creatures that are not yet known to be responsible for their small size.
The Sumatran tigers in the Sumatra archipelago are also smaller
Source: wildfact.com
Hippopotamus droppings, free "flying"
Hippos and hippos are both fat people in the water, and these fat people in the water can always give people a special feeling of taste when they go to the toilet, and friends who have been to the zoo must know that the hippopotamus area is basically the most smelly! That's because of the way they defecate – they always move their tails when they poop, stir their feces and throw them out, and of course they shake them with their urine.
I wish everyone who sees this picture has a smooth bowel movement
Why do you want to make such a gesture? In fact, they mark their territory with droppings, which is also a way for male hippos to attract the opposite sex and warn competitors that whoever is far away is the boss...... Small, male and female hippos use their dung as a marker for their territory. Hippos walk on the trails of their territory and renew their droppings every day to show that they are patrolling.
Some male hippos also compete for territory by yawning or "gladiatorial fighting".
Another important reason is that the sphincter muscles of these two fat people are not well developed, and it is difficult to directly use muscle contraction and relaxation to complete the excretion, and if you don't sweep your tail to stir the feces, the feces will stick to the buttocks.
A hippopotamus stirring dung
Source: savethehippos.info
Hippos can sometimes be discharged into the water and become fertilizer for aquatic plants and algae. However, in the dry season of the African savannah, hippopotamus manure will directly turn the water into eutrophicated and smelly fecal water when the total water volume of the river decreases and many water bodies are cut off, and the dissolved oxygen in the water is not high. Later, during the rainy season, water washed the manure downstream of the river, causing many fish downstream to suffocate in the low-oxygen water with hippo droppings. The "flight" of freedom becomes the "flight" of death.
Watch out for hippopotamus dropper billboards
Source: Amazon
All in all, there are a lot of secrets behind the Hippopotamus and its big hippopotamus brothers. If you go out into the wild and see them marking their territory, stay away.
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Written by | Great Qing Divine Dragon
WeChat edit | Zhao Zhiyu