the hippopotamus is known as the large river hippopotamus or common hippopotamus is an exceptionally large, largely omnivorous, semi-aquatic mammal, and semi-arboreal creature indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa. It’s one of just two extant species within the clade Hippopotamidae, that other being the pouched hippopotamus.
It’s estimated that these animals weigh more than 100 pounds, with the lower half of their bodies sticking straight out. Their hind legs have short claws, while their front legs are long like those of the pouched hippo.
A member of the order Ceratopsidae, this animal is related to modern whales and hippos, but unlike whales and hippos, its fore and hind legs have no web, tusks, or tail. Only slightly shorter than a meter in length, it stands about two meters high at the shoulder, with a slender body measuring between nine and ten by five centimeters. Coloration in the body is usually reddish-brown, with black bars on its trunk. Its upperparts are clothed in thick, dark fur. It has a few spines on its hind legs.
According to the naturalist Aldo Frick in his book “ashes and Bits,” the hippopotamus belongs to the class of mammals called Cetacea. The word “cetacea” means “all-dwelling.” Other representatives of the Cetaceous Earth include such familiar animals as the sloth bear, the giant opossum, and the placental mammal that includes humans. The first known hippopotamus was discovered by Sir Richard Branson in 1878, near Aix-Les-les in France.
Hippos generally live in the moist soil of tropical rainforests and subtropical areas. They are herbivores, eating vegetation and fruit trees. They have no teeth, so they consume soft foods with their lips. A well-preserved hippo calf, whose neck had not yet completely dropped off, could be seen under a tree in Ayodhya Pradesh in India. The modern hippo is no longer distinguished from the common hippopotamus in this way.
Believed to be the oldest known land mammal, the hippopotamus lived for about six million years during the prehistoric era. Strumicine teeth and other evidence suggest that this animal fed exclusively on vegetation in dry riverbeds. Some evidence also suggests that they used the waterways of ancient Asia as their source of food. They were an important part of early human life because of their role as caregivers and breeders of animals.
The most complete hippopotamus fossils belong to a single individual, although several types of fossils have been found. Partially complete fossils have been found in England, notably the skull of a hippopotamus called P.lippos. Other well-known fossils include the holosaurid fossils of the same species, which lived alongside early man in Western Africa, and the well-preserved remains of an elephant-like mammal called H.
erecta. The most complete fossil of an early H. erecta was found at the Voormats River in Western Scotland. Apart from the two mentioned species mentioned above, other well-known and noteworthy hippo fossils can be found in Kenya and Tanzania.
