You common hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) are among the heaviest animals in the world. On average, they have 1.5 tons, but some can reach almost 4 tons. Despite its high weight, a new study reveals that this species can reach the so-called “aerial phase”.
Roughly speaking, this means that hippos can keep their four legs suspended in the air, in moments that reach high speed — as occurs among horses, for example. The study was led by Professor John R Hutchinson, from the Royal Veterinary College, in the United Kingdom, and published in the scientific journal PeerJ.
According to researchers, the common hippopotamus can reach a speed of approximately 8 m/s (equivalent to 30 km/h)in a movement classified as “accelerated trot”.
“None of the hippos studied used step patterns other than a trot (or near-trot), but at the fastest speeds, the hippos achieved brief aerial phases, which is apparently a new finding,” the paper says.
For comparison purposes, elephants reach, on average, 7 m/s (25 km/h). “Hippos exhibit relatively greater athletic ability than elephants in several respects,” the researchers said.
Common hippos are among the five heaviest species in the world among land mammals, behind only three species of elephants and the white rhinoceros, the study points out.
The research was carried out by capturing videos of two hippos that live in the Flamingo Land Resorta zoo and resort in the United Kingdom, and by watching videos available on the internet. Check it out here.
162 video samples were compiled from 32 different hippos. “Our data help form a basis for evaluating whether other hippos use normal locomotion, which is relevant for clinical veterinary assessments of locomotion problems and for reconstructing the evolutionary biomechanics of hippo lineages,” the research concludes.
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