Sat 28 Jan 2006
Who would win in a race between a tortoise and a hippo? It’s one of the fundamental questions plaguing modern society. Until we can answer that, here are some pictures of a 100 year old tortoise adopting a baby hippo.
NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.
The hippopotamus, nicknamed “Owen”, and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.
“It is incredible! A less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’,” ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.
“After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added. “The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.
“The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,” he explained.
Apparently there’s a book out now about Owen and Mzee.
Surprisingly very little can be found about lightning and thunder during snow storms. Growing up, the great lightning storms of the flat plains were amazingly bright and beautiful (and frightening), but the photographers knew that they would only get the best shots during the peak April-August season. Not really the time of year for snow.
