{"id":26896,"date":"2022-09-30T16:05:39","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T16:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animalcorner.org\/?post_type=blog&p=26896"},"modified":"2023-09-01T11:53:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T11:53:52","slug":"what-do-hippos-eat","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/animalcorner.org\/blog\/what-do-hippos-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do Hippos Eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Most hippopotamus live by a herbivorous diet, but they don’t all eat the same foods. While they spend most of their time in water, aquatic foods actually make up only a small amount of what they eat. That goes for both pygmy and common hippos. So what do hippos eat exactly? and how does it differ between the species?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Types of Hippo and What They Eat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are only two types of hippo alive in the world today, the common hippo and the pygmy hippo. They both look very similar in terms of features but the pygmy hippo is much smaller. Despite their similarities they are actually belong to different genus. In fact, technically the pygmy hippo is not actually a hippopotamus at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the common hippopotamus and pygmy hippopotamus have a herbivorous diet<\/a>, with some exceptions. The common hippo prefers to eat lots of grasses, and where available they will eat fruits and different reeds too. Pygmy hippos have a more varied, and strictly herbivorous diet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What Do Hippos Eat? (Hippopotamus amphibius<\/strong><\/em>)<\/h3>\n\n\n
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The modern hippopotamus is also sometimes called the common hippopotamus<\/a> or river hippopotamus. It is the only extant member of the genus Hippopotamus<\/em>, and is the third largest living land mammal on the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wild, hippos may stay in the waters all day, however, at night they come out of the lakes, swamps and ponds and head for the grass to graze. For a long time hippos were considered to be strictly herbivorous, and because of their massive size, hippos are considered to be megaherbivores. However, some have been observed eating meat, and these observations are increasing. This makes at least some hippos omnivores<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first observations of carnivorous<\/a> behaviour were during a drought year in the 1990’s and it was thought that the risk of starvation played an impact on this. However, more recent observations of meat eating in periods of normal food availability have now also occurred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of if hippo’s eat meat or not, the bulk of a their diet is made up of short savannah grass. They eat this every night, and will subsidise their diet with various reeds, shoots and fruits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aquatic vegetation makes up only a small portion of their diet, despite spending so much time in the water. While hippos do mostly travel at night to feeding grounds, they do on occasion leave the water in daylight to take in some grass from the banks of their watercourse. These areas are called hippo lawns, as the grass is always very short. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of those that do eat meat, they may be opportunistic scavengers, and have been known to eat from the carcases of wildebeest<\/a>, kudus and zebras<\/a>. They have also been known, on rare occasion to resort to cannibalism of other hippos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have a relatively nutrition poor diet, but their slow rate of digestion helps them to get the most benefit out of their food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of a hippos diet is made up of:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n