What do hippos eat.Hippos, or rather hippos, are large and powerful animals, and you may be wondering what the animals eat. The answer might surprise many: Because they feed only on plants
Hippos have a long, heavy body with short legs. The huge head is dominated by jaws for wide opening of the mouth (up to 150°). It has long, tusk-like canines and incisors. The broad nose is covered with sensitive bristles. The short, flat tail ends in a tassel.
Webs are used for life in the water. Eyes, ears and nostrils are located on top of the head (often only they are seen above water). The nostrils are closed under water. The skin is gray with a pink tinge on the underside and skin folds. She is mostly hairless and extremely thick and greasy. Hippo skin has no sebaceous glands. Instead, there are mucous glands (converted sweat glands) that secrete a viscous mass to keep the skin moist when exposed to air. This mass, which appears pink due to a red pigment, can also protect against infection and sunburn.
While the hippopotamus weighs around 1.4 tons, the pygmy hippopotamus, with its relatively longer legs, much smaller head, darker skin and eyes on the side of the head, weighs only around 250 kg.
What do hippos eat
Hippos live in Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and thrive in deeper lakes or rivers with little current. They also look for food here.
So it is a good thing that hippos are pure herbivores. So they look for grasses and some land plants near their waters. They don’t like aquatic plants.
In total, they graze for up to 6 hours a day. They manage around 70 kilograms of plants every day. In order to get enough food, they migrate from feeding place to feeding place at night.
A few exceptions have been observed where hippos have also eaten meat. It was mostly carrion, for example from killed enemies or dead members of the same species. One possible reason for this is that this food was then simply available.
They can digest both plants and meat, although their digestive system is specialized for processing plant foods.