Kenya Believe It!? Hippos 🦛

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:02][music] [music] >> When it comes to land animals, the largest is the elephant. The second is the rhino, and the honor of the third largest goes to the hippopotamus.

[00:00:24]Surprisingly, the hippo is also considered the most dangerous mammal in Africa.

[00:00:29]They can be very aggressive, especially when their young are threatened.

[00:00:34]Despite seeming lazy, happy to just slowly roll around, these guys are fast.

[00:00:40]Over short distances, they can run at 19 mph.

[00:00:45]That's faster [music] than the much celebrated 4-minute mile.

[00:00:49]And in the water, even the greatest swimmer of all time, Olympian Michael Phelps, can't outrun these big beasts.

[00:00:57]Hippos will attack boats, though that's pretty rare. Still, we were sure to keep our distance.

[00:01:05]Even fearsome hunters, like [music] jaguars and crocodiles, keep their distance. The hippo has the strongest bite [music] in the animal kingdom.

[00:01:14]In a head-to-head fight between a lion and a hippo, if I said the winner would be the lion, I'd be lying.

[00:01:22]Male hippos, called bulls, will open their mouths wide to expose a mouthful of terrifying teeth >> [music] >> and tusks. They'll use those teeth to challenge one another for dominance in the herd, but those tusks are also one of the reasons why hippos are hunted by humans.

[00:01:41]Poachers kill to get the ivory.

[00:01:44]The name hippopotamus [music] comes from the ancient Greek for river horse.

[00:01:49]And that looks like a rock. I think that looks like that.

[00:01:52]Hippos are built for the water, where they spend much of their day.

[00:01:55]>> [music] >> Notice how high up on the head the eyes are, as well as the nostrils and ears.

[00:02:01]That allows hippos to stay almost fully submerged and still be able to breathe and [music] keep tabs on what's happening around them.

[00:02:10]It also helps protect them from the blazing African sun, as does lying around in the cool mud.

[00:02:16]Hippos are herbivores, which means they eat plants and grass.

[00:02:21]Despite their low-carb diet, males can grow as large as 4 tons.

[00:02:26]Although bigger and heavier than females, it's the females who call the shots within the herd. And while hippos look like huge pigs, they're not related.

[00:02:37]The hippos' closest relatives are actually whales. Both trace their genes back to the same ancestor.

[00:02:44]For some reason, 60 million years ago, the family tree branched off in two directions, creating giants roaming the ocean and giants roaming the land.

[00:02:55]Despite their great size, hippos and even whales are both threatened by the same thing, us.

[00:03:03]So, it's up to us to protect them. One thing we can do is write our members of Congress [music] and demand that hippos are added to the Endangered Species Act.

[00:03:13]The act would prohibit the hunting of hippos.

[00:03:17]And that would make a whale of a difference in the hippos' battle for survival.

[00:03:22]For Teen Kids News, I'm Ava.