Hippopotamus

Such a strange animal, the hippopotamus. They seem to be on my mind lately - did you hear about the baby hippo Owen, who was orphaned in the tsunami earlier this year? They took him to a game reserve, where he immediately formed a strong bond with a 130 year old sea turtle. The two now follow each other around and have been known to cuddle, which is all well and good until the hippo grows up!

But more recently, a good friend of mine came over for dinner last night and we started reminiscing about our luxurious game drive in South Africa. While we were there, our ranger told us that, while they look big and awkward, hippos run up to 30 km/hr on land and even faster in the water! Does this really pass the sniff test? I've passed this info on to other people, but after discussing it with Greg last night I finally looked it up to find the truth. According to wikipedia:

"While it is accepted that a hippo can run faster than a human on land, there are various estimates of its actual running speed. These vary from 30 km/h (18 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph) or even 48 km/h (30 mph). The higher values probably refer to short bursts of speed. While underwater, hippos can move at 8 km/h."

While it appears that the effect of drag overcomes the effect of bouyancy for the hippo, I still wouldn't want to race one in the water!