Live At The Cleveland Zoo-Hippopotamus

OK, it's time to finally get away from the birds for a bit and bring you one of the stars from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. This is, of course, a hippopotamus. He never came out of the water, so pretty much all I'm able to show you is his head, and if you look down at the bottom, you can see his back after he ducked down into his swimming hole. I've seen these guys on TV plenty of times, moving gracefully through the water, but they seem much larger in person. I'd hate to meet one of these in a dark swimming pool, let me tell you! This guy's name is Blackie, he's a Nile Hippo, and he's more than 50 years old. That may explain why he didn't do too much in the time I spent watching him


When he first popped his head up out of the water, I thought he had surfaced underneath some moss that had fallen in the water or something. Turned out to be his whiskers. I guess if they're searching for food in murky water, they can't use their eyes, so they have to use their other senses, and whiskers can go a long way towards enhancing one's sense of touch.