This is published on LakbimaNews on 21.02.2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Stud Hippo hot to start...
published on LakbimaNews on 19.07.2010
A young male hippo was brought down from Singapore recently to the Dehiwela zoo; the authorities are hoping that he will choose to mate with the zoo’s female hippos and get their Hippo breeding programme kick-started.
The male pygmy hippo arrived in Sri Lanka on 19 June in a strong metal cage aboard flight UL910. His welcome party included zoo officer Manaka Pathiraja who was ready with all the paperwork. A little upset at his first airborne experience, he was quickly loaded into the animal carriage and whisked off to the zoo.
At the zoo the hippo was soon unloaded and placed in a cage temporarily until he got acquainted with the other hippos. Though hippos are herbivores, they boast of a pair of huge canine teeth that are particularly dangerous. So, it was necessary to introduce the animal to the others carefully. Handling the animal too had to be done with care. The 6 member pygmy hippo family has successfully bred at Dehiwela, but new blood was required to avoid inbreeding. Inbreeding occurs when members of the same family mate and weakens the gene pool, often resulting in abnormal births.
Pygmy hippos, so called because they’re smaller in size compared to the normal hippo, can grow upto 6 ft in length and weigh upto 300 Kg. They inhabit Western African forests and swamps, but are threatened in the wild. It is believed that the wild population is very small and number only a few thousands.
The species is so nocturnal and secretive that zoologists cannot study them easily in the wild. But pygmy hippos are easily bred in captivity which gave a chance for zoologists to understand them at least to some extent. The pygmy hippo has a dark coloured skin that appears shiny due to the greasy gum they secrete to protect themselves when out of water. The lower incisor teeth are very long and are used as weapons.
The pygmy hippos at the zoo can be located by going past the elephant sheds. These giants will open their mouth as if begging for food. But do not feed them as that’s harmful to the animal’s health.
The new youngster is still caged separately adjoining the pygmy hippo family. He sometimes restlessly walks in the enclosure gazing at his new friends.
Pix courtesy National Zoological Gardens
Hippos roamed in pre-historic Sri Lanka
Wild hippos can now only be found in African jungles. But a long time back during the pre-historic Palearctic Era, hippos roamed Sri Lankan swamps. This was revealed in the archaeological findings of Dr P E P Deraniyagala. The fossils can be seen at the natural history section of Sri Lanka’s national museum. Not just hippos, there were rhinos, lions, tigers and gaurs that inhabited Sri Lanka, and fossilized bones can be seen as evidence on a visit to the museum.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
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