Botswana, Animals

Hippopotamus

About 2 in the morning, unbelieveably loud roaring woke me from a sound sleep. Huge monsters were fighting and dying outside!

It turned out to be a territorial conflict among bull hippos.

As vegetarians, it's a bit surprising to learn that hippos are quite aggressive. In fact, only one creature kills more humans in Africa than hippos. That's the mosquito.

We normally saw eyes and ears above water and not much else, as in this photo. At night, hippos come out of the water to eat, and I took the topmost photo just before sunset.

I took the above photo from the boat on the Chobe River, again just before sunset. As we passed, that hippo stepped into to the river and submerged completely.

At bottom right is a layer of duckweed. I think hippos prefer that kind of place, as they're even harder to see!