There is a river in Africa Kenya and Tanzania called Mara River . The river not only supports a large number of fish and crocodiles, but is also home to hippos. Every year, many wild animals come here, and crossing the Mara River is the most magnificent scenery in the area.
However, a strange thing often happens on that river. During the rainy season from March to June every year, the water in the Mara River suddenly rises, and the flow will reach twice that of the dry season. At this time, a large number of fish in the downstream river will die inexplicably, sometimes thousands of them. Fish washed up on the shore.
Fish die regularly in local rivers, and animal experts are curious about the phenomenon. At first, they thought it was caused by excessive use of the pesticide by locals. Later, after detailed investigation, they found that it was related to hippos. Hippopotamus are animals that live in water. Hippopotamus are the largest omnivorous mammals in freshwater
Adult hippos are 4 meters long and weigh up to 1.3 tons. Even crocodiles are afraid of such a large body. Hippos are mainly found in areas rich in tropical aquatic plants in Africa. The Mara River Basin in Africa is the distribution area of hippos.
Hippos are huge and eat an astonishing amount of food. Each hippopotamus eats more than 200 kilograms of aquatic plants every day. The more you eat, the more you eat.
In order to protect themselves from the sun and mosquito bites, hippos stay in the water for a long time every day. During the dry season, the water level of the Mara River drops, but many ponds and wetlands remain on both sides of the river. Hippos like to stay here after eating and drinking, and their feces will naturally drain into the pond and accumulate here. The feces excreted by numerous hippos polluted the river water, causing a large number of fish deaths in the river.
So, did those fish die from the feces excreted by the hippopotamus?
If fish die in large numbers in the water, it must be related to the water quality. Researchers inspected hippo activity ponds
After many comparisons, they found that the death of fish was related to water quality. Hippos in the Mara River Basin discharge more than 8 tons of feces into riverside ponds every day.
If there are too many of these feces, it will lead to excessive organic matter in the water. Microorganisms in the water not only produce harmful gases, but also consume oxygen in the water, causing the oxygen content of the downstream river to become very low. When there is less oxygen in the water, fish die from lack of oxygen in the water
Finally, I would like to remind visitors that when you go to the zoo to see hippos, if you find hippos defecating, you cannot get too close, otherwise you will regret it . Because not only do hippos usually poop more, they also have a bad habit. They like to have that big tail spin around behind their butts, pulling and spreading their feces, which can accidentally splash onto surrounding visitors.
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