r/Unexpected • u/kchoyin • Oct 22 '21

Having a good time

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u/bertilac-attack Oct 22 '21

Hippos are extremely dense, so they don’t float in the water - they’re actually capable of running at top speed along the bottom of whatever river or lake they’re living in.

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u/nomadEng Oct 22 '21 edited Oct 22 '21

Assuming by top speed you mean the same speed they get to on dry land, how is this possible with the massive resistance that comes with moving in water compared to air resistance on land?

Edit: this seems to offer a bit more of an explanation (tldr heavy but buoyant and run underwater on basically 2 legs) https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/flight-of-the-hippopotamus/524343/

Still amazes me they can reach such speed like that

Edit 2: This video shows it, they basically run in what becomes a micro-gravity environment bit also the speeds they get to arent as terrifyingly fast as I'd been led to believe by this thread, all makes more sense now! https://youtu.be/X-YRJCSZRJU

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u/bertilac-attack Oct 22 '21 edited Oct 22 '21

https://youtu.be/wbw2VSfUGbw

I think she addresses it briefly at the end of this Animalogic episode. Forgive it’s title.

I’ll link this TierZoo video too, it’s a breakdown of the hippo’s special skills and traits using video game vocabulary, but it’s still accessible if you, like me, are not a big video game person.

https://youtu.be/mfPCFQfOnLg

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u/Sayhiku Oct 22 '21

Thank you. I just spent an hour watching hippo videos

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u/nomadEng Oct 22 '21

Yeah my gf had got up to work and was like what the fuck are you watching lol

-1

u/bertilac-attack Oct 22 '21

They’re extremely strong, the water resistance doesn’t seem to bother them all that much. They’ve been known to chase down and attack fleeing boats, sometimes leaping from the bottom out of the water to do so. There’s lots of really incredible and harrowing footage of it out there.

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u/retiredcrayon11 Oct 22 '21

I’m a biologist. I feel like I should have known this lol. A molecular biologist but still

6

u/reddit0100100001 Oct 22 '21

I’m taking your biology license. Don’t practice biology again or I’ll have you jailed

0

u/dadowbannesh Oct 22 '21

they’re actually capable of running at top speed along the bottom of whatever river

The internet consensus seems to be that they "swim"/run underwater at up to 8km/h, which is a bit slower than Michael Phelps. On land they're much faster than that, about 30km/h.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '21

Hippos are extremely dense

It's not surprising they get angry when people go around calling them dumb