Hippopotami, Various

Class:	Beasts Real and Realistic
Hab:	Real: tropics, shores of rivers, marshes, and lakes Fantasy: furry in temperate & arctic climes + any seaside or archipelago Deep sea meropotomi: any marine environment with food; pelagic to benthic
Fre:	Herbivores and omnivores common, carnivores rare
Num:	4-24; multiple herds likely in rich habitats
Lair:	90% in territory, aquatic by day, on adjoining land at night; pygmy less aquatic
Size:	Real: 5' tall at shoulder, 5,000 lbs. Real pygmy hippo: 30" tall at shoulder, 400 lbs.
Move:	Fair swim, horse-fast charge but usually slow waddle
Def:	Extremely thick hide + blubber padding, shear mass, deeply buried vitals Fictional: crocodile-style or ankylosaur-like armor, or thick fur
Att:	Bite, trample
Int:	Basic beast; pig-smart, carnivorous pack hunters smarter
Spec:	Stay submerged 5 min. (real) /30 min. (fictional); hide with only ears, nostrils, eyes exposed
Posns:	Ivory, hide, meat; fictional hunted for armor plates and fur

Real Hippos

Real hippopotami are herbivores, but are dangerous because they are territorial and often respond to perceived or potential threats with a preemptive charging en mass as a pack of avalanche proportions. In the water these rotund river horses are surprisingly fast and even graceful; their great mass allows them to swim through muck or quicksand as though it were but water. On land they are capable of short bursts of horse-fast speed.

Hippos spend most of the day lolling in the water, grazing on aquatic vegetation. They can float on the surface or walk along on the bottom; they are surprisingly graceful swimmers and divers. Their ears, nostrils, and bulgy eyes are set upon the top of their broad heads, so they can float with the rest of their body submerges while observing their surroundings. At night the herd comes ashore to graze on terrestrial plants. Their favorite activities are eating, digesting, and eating some more.

Pygmy hippos are less aquatic than their larger cousins, sleeping in onshore thickets. Their diet is similar to that of pigs.

Meropotomus

As "hippopotamus" means "river horse," so "meropotomus" means "sea horse." This hippo-of-the-sea is much like its more common cousins, but dines upon seaweeds and seaside vegetation. Meropotomi are common in archipelagos, visiting islands too small to sustain permanent populations of such large herbivores. As with hippopotami, there are vegetarian, carnivorous, and opportunistic species of meroppotomi.

Deep sea meropotomi may have fish-like gills and scales; they may or may not be able to breath air.

Crushapotami

The crushapotamus hippo delights in a diet of large, hard-shelled nuts, such as coconuts and Brazil nuts. The crushapatomus can be distinguished from regular hippos by its mouth, the muzzle being twice as broad and furnished with broad, flat-topped teeth, six upper and eight lower, across the jaw front; these are incisors modified rather like giant molars. So equipped, the crushapotomus can mash any nut it can get its jaws around - and those jaws open wide indeed. While generally a placid beast, crushapotami can be as aggressive as any sort of hippo.

Young crushapotami can be trained as great galumphing pets - and as guard beasts. They are favored features of the moats and grassy greenswards of tropical and subtropical estates.

Saber-toothed Hippos

Technically omnivorous rather than carnivorous, these horrific hippos enjoy supplementing their diet of waterweeds with the occasional mawfull of flesh. Capable of short bursts of horse-fast speed on land and brandishing jaws armed with great clamping tushes, they are well able to satisfy their appetite for meat.

Armored Hippos

In the real world, an adult hippo has little to fear. Their great size intimidates even lions and crocodiles. By making a habit of charging, the adult hippos keep such predators well away form their young. In worlds of fiction, where mighty predators from remnant carnosaurs to dragons abound, hippos may require crocodile-like armor to be safe; especially dangerous environments may give rise to ankylosaur-like armoring, augmented by dagger-like spines scattered across the back as well as splayed out to either side.

Dry land hippos of dangerous deserts have armadillo-like armor; consider what sort of carnivores that implies!

Furry Hippos

In the cold arctic, hippos have pelts as thick and shaggy as a musk ox or mammoth. These hippos also have much thicker layers of blubber, insulating them against cold and the blows of predators alike. With their vast bulk, arctic hippos can crash through the ice, keeping portals somewhat like seal blowholes between their aquatic and terrestrial territories open throughout the year. Arctic hippos use their tushes to flip loose chunks of ice out of these holes in the ice. Arctic true hippos should not be confused with hippo-shaped Ice Beasts, which SEE, which have similar statistics.

Temperate hippos have shorter, more otter-like pelts. They prefer to be fat all year long, but are fattest in the fall and thinnest in the spring.

SEE also the lubolf, a traditional heraldic hippopotamus-like creature with fangs.

The Hippopotamus

Ogden Nash

Behold the hippopotamus!
We laugh at how he looks to us,
And yet in moments dank and grim,
I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!
We really look all right to us,
As you no doubt delight the eye
Of other hippopotami.

I Had a Hippopotamus

Patrick Barrington (1908-1990)

I had a Hippopotamus, I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread
I made him my companion on many cheery walks
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalks.

His charming eccentricities were known on every side
The creatures' popularity was wonderfully wide
He frolocked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles.

If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or the hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again.

I had a Hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to have an end
Time takes alas! our joys from us and rids us of our blisses
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamisses.

My house keeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye She did not want a colony of hippotami
She borrowed a machine gun from her soldier nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy.

My house now lacks that glamour that the charming creature gave
The garage wherein I kept him is now as silent as the grave
No longer he displays among the motor tyres and spanners
His hippopomastery of hippopotamanners.

No longer now he gambles in the orchards in the spring
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string
No longer in the morning does the neighbourhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-meditated voice.

I had a hippopotamus but nothing upon earth
Is constant in its happiness or lasting in its mirth
No joy that life can give me can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for that might-have-been-a-hippopota-mother.

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Apr 11, 2006