GETTY – STOCK IMAGE
Hippopotamus has been an English word since the 1300s
1. The Hippo in Hippo Regius came from a Carthaginian word meaning harbour and had nothing to do with hippopotamuses.
2. Oxford dictionaries accept either hippopotami or hippopotamuses as the plural of hippopotamus but suggest the former is “… now generally taken to be either funny or absurdly pedantic”.
3. Hippopotamus has been an English word since the 1300s. The abbreviation hippo arrived in 1872.
4. In the English Bible, hippopotamuses are not mentioned but in French Behold Behemoth (Job 40:15) is translated as Voici l’hippopotame.
5. Hippopotamus came from two Ancient Greek words meaning “river horse”.
6. An average male hippo weighs 3,300lb. Of all land mammals only elephants or rhinos are bigger.
7. In Africa, despite being mainly vegetarian, hippos kill more humans than any other mammal.
8. A herd of 50 or 60 hippos once owned by drug baron Pablo Escobar is living wild in Colombia.
GETTY – STOCK IMAGE
A herd of 50 or 60 hippos once owned by Pablo Escobar is living wild in Colombia
9. Israel is reported to be the world’s largest exporter of hippos to zoos.
10. They are bred outside Tel Aviv and carried in crates after being sedated and lifted by bulldozers.