Needing to let one rip in public can be really embarrassing.
Those beans you had might just be coming back for revenge, so you find some spot to let it rip where no one can hear you.
Other times, it’s unavoidable and you’ve just got to play it cool or pretend it wasn’t you.
Hipposaren’t as ashamed when it comes to flatulence.
When you’re a 2-ton herbivore that even crocodiles hesitate to approach, you can do whatever you want.
And this particular hippo at the zoo was building up some gas for a while. The guests had no idea, clearly.
The guests at this zoo came to see a hippo do hippo things. You know, eat, bask in the water, maybe open its impressive jaws for them.
What they didn’t know is that “hippo things” also includes pooping. Lots of it. The Hippopotamus is a very messy animal.
The guests are all excited when it comes out of the water.
It might do something cute or fun to watch, they probably think.
They were in for the surprise of a lifetime when a torrent of flatulence is unleashed from the hippo’s behind.
It happened in a few seconds. First came the fart, then the feces. And there was lots of it.
Using its tail, the nearly 2-ton herbivore sprinkled all that poop around its enclosure.
It’s really gross, but it’s a well-known thing hippos like to do what’s known as “muck-spreading.”
No one’s quite sure why they do this. Even the zoological community is puzzled by the poopy showers these animals like to make.
You may think it’s their way of marking territory, but that doesn’t quite add up.
Hippos only claim territories in the water.
So what’s the point of making such a mess? Perhaps the hippos just want their butts clean, even if it causes some “collateral damage”.
As a matter of fact, poop is a pretty significant part of the ecology of the hippopotamus.
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When the so-named “River horse” defecates in the rivers, lakes, or mangrove swamps it inhabits, it actually affects more than just the smell.
Hippo feces and the volume that the animals put out have a significant impact on what’s known as the biogeochemical cycle – the interaction and cycle of chemicals in the environment.
They also affect the ecosystem in a different way: by killing the fish.
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Hippopotamus are known to defecate in such a crazy volume that the microbes in their poop take all the oxygen from the water.
Without any oxygen for them, the fish then suffocate and die.
It happens when the seasonal storms wash all the accumulated hippo feces down to other parts of the rivers and lakes.
Then the poop starts decomposing and sucking up all the water’s oxygen that the fish need.
It’s pretty funny if a little gross and horrible.
Check out the video below!
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