{"id":88473,"date":"2025-02-14T21:56:41","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T21:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/animal\/the-wild-pig-that-never-was\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T21:56:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T21:56:41","slug":"the-wild-pig-that-never-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=88473","title":{"rendered":"The Wild Pig That Never Was"},"content":{"rendered":"


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What animal sweats pink,<\/span>
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\n…has skin that cracks easily in the sun,<\/span>
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\n…only comes out at night,<\/span>
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\n…and is only 30 inches tall?<\/span>
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\nThe Pygmy hippo!<\/span>
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Hippos in general are just silly-looking, don’t you think? \u00a0Those constantly flicking ears, the rounded noses and squat bodies. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And just seeing all those\u00a0<\/span>hippo eyes in a lake is funny.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nBut hippos are actually no laughing matter…like the rhino<\/a>, they are in the top 10 for most dangerous animal in the world.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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\nThey can attack at any time, overturn vehicles, gore with their tusks, and trample things underfoot. Yikes!<\/span>
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\nSo be careful of hippos. Even Pygmy ones have some serious tusks like the Pygmy hippo below.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nPYGMY HIPPOS – Photo by PA<\/span>

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\nEarly explorers didn’t know Pygmy hippos were hippos; they saw short, round, tusked creatures in the forest and thought, “Mmmm, wild pig.” \u00a0They were a favorite of hunters because these “wild pigs” tasted much better than other wild pigs!<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the late 1800s, however, scientists finally identified these creatures as hippos.<\/span>

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\nToday, Pygmy hippos are rare, living in the forests of West Africa. They hide in the rivers during the day, sometimes under river banks or large burrows, then come out to find fruit and fern leaves at night. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So really, you’ll never see a bunch of Pygmy hippo eyes looking at you from a river or lake, because, unlike their huge cousins, Pygmies like to live alone.<\/span>
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\nLet’s compare a regular-sized hippo to a Pygmy hippo:<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nDid you know it would take 10 Pygmy hippos to make a common hippo?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


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\nThere are only about 3,000 Pygmy hippos in the world today. They’re losing their forest habitats quickly, so growing the population in zoos is important. But for some reason, males are born way less often than females.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nPYGMY HIPPOS – Photo by PA<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nNow take a look at this little guy…very important to recovering the Pygmy hippo population.<\/span>
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