When looking at a hippo it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume it swims like a manatee.
I can appreciate they’re pretty quick on land despite their little legs, I imagine there is mad power in those stumpy bois. But in the water how do they get any real propulsion and how do they glide through with such wide and seemingly non hydrodynamic bodies?
I’ve seen videos of them chasing down speedboats, it defies logic. What’s going on under there?
In: Biology
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Hippos don’t actually swim.
Despite their appearance hippos are all muscle. They don’t float due to their (surprisingly) low body fat, they sink. So when you see hippos powering through water they’re not swimming. They’re actually running along the bottom.
All of that muscle combined with a shocking level of aggression makes a very determined underwater runner.
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They’re super dense. Humans float pretty well in water, so it’s hard to push your way through because you have very little leverage. Hippos on the other hand sink to the bottom, then run along the floor. If a human tried that, they would just flail around, but a hippo can actually push off the ground to move themselves.
Hippos look fat, but they don’t actually have huge fat reserves. Their bulk is from thick skin, muscle and bone. So they are heavy and sink in water. The water they live in is shallow and they move by sinking then pushing themselves along the bottom. When moving slowly this looks quite graceful as they use all legs at once. When they want to move quickly they can switch to “running” along the bottom whereby they push with one leg at a time to maximise contact with the ground and so push themselves faster forward.
We are used to seeing things on land. Cheetahs and deer are fast and lean. Tortoises and cows are slower and heavier.
On land going fast is about minimizing the amount of weight to the amount of muscles moving that weight. You are stronger than a dog or a cat, but even though you are bigger and stronger, a dog or cat is probably much faster than you. If you were to weigh a dog or a cat, the weight of the muscles in their legs would be a much larger portion of their overall weight.
Moving through water is different. Most animals don’t have to use much muscle to support their buddies. Its about moving through the water. If you have ever seen a dog or a cat in the water, you will probably notice they are not much faster than you.
Hippos have a LOT of muscle, and on land they are pretty fast. The fat and other tissue slows them down, but in the water, it doesn’t.
I read this as “Hippies”.
And I was t sure where that info was from. But I was very intrigued.
What you’re seeing in the videos is them running along the bottom and jumping to the surface.
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