Baby Hippo Hides Behind Its Mom

Well, there’s a new edition to the Cabarceno wildlife park in Cantabria, Spain, but it seems that she’s not quite ready for the world just yet. Pictured here is newborn baby hippopotamus, she’s just a day old in fact, and she’s enjoying her first time wallowing in the mud. However, the world can be a scary place when you’re only a couple of hours old, so the little lady took every opportunity to hide under her mother that she could get. Mother hippos are always very protective of their young because they only give birth to one child per 2-3 years, and the baby is often in danger of being trampled by raging male hippos. At birth, hippos weigh about 93 pounds (42 kilograms), and they’re born in water (they swim to the top immediately after birth for their first breath of air) so as to prevent them falling and being injured during exit. This baby hippo, like most, will nurse for her first 12 months, and then send the next couple of years under the care and guidance of her mother. Hippos have a life expectancy of 40-50 years, so she’ll have plenty of time to live the hippo-life once she ventures out on her own.