Hippos are photographed biting a crocodile to death

Slightly unrelated, but if you haven't seen it a pygmy hippo was recently shot here in Australia in the Northern Territory. http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2009/11/16/101241_ntnews.html

Thanks Stephen, what an extraordinary story. For those who haven't clicked on the link yet, the hippo was killed by accident during a pig-shoot and had been living in the wild for about five years after its escape or release from a (now closed) wildlife park. As is noted in a related article, how many other big escaped exotics might be lurking, unknown to anyone, in the area?

Also in hippos news, there were the recent photos of the guy in Uganda running for his life: here (be sure to look at all three pics).

(I'm not sure that circle is the right word: wouldn't 'scrum' or 'wall' be more like it?

According to this site, it's either a 'bloat', a 'crash', a 'herd', a 'pod', a 'school', or a 'thunder' or of hippos. (And it would be a 'bask', a 'congregation', a 'float', or a 'nest' of crocodiles.)

do people agree with me that there's a need for such cases to be put on 'official' record?

Yes! Absolutely. It may be anecdotal but it's still data.

Stephen:

a pygmy hippo was recently shot here in Australia in the Northern Territory

Un-frikkin-believable!

Hi Dartian. I wasn't looking for the 'correct' plural for hippos; rather, I'm not sure that the hippos really did form a defensive circle as stated. Judging from the photos, they've just massed together.

As for anecdotes being data, I find your statement interesting in view of Charles Paxton's recent talk at the sea monster conference. Check out this excerpt from my (yet to be published) write-up of the meeting...

[W]hile there's a widespread belief (particularly prevalent among scientists) that anecdotal data are worthless, anecdotes are important at several levels of the scientific process, including in hypothesis formation. Indeed, once a hypothesis (random example: that hippos might practise cannibalism) becomes accepted by a given research community, the chiming in from others in that community is often taken as verification, even though these additional records are typically anecdotal ("I want to report that I've also seen hippos practising cannibalism").

In other words, anecdotes can be very important.

Pygmy hippos in Australia? Reminds me to the hippos in Colombia which even reproduced in the wild.
I remember that there is an ancient egypt wall painting or carving (have to check from where and which time), which shows a hunt on the nile. As far as I remember, there is also a hippo with a big croc between its jaws, very similar to the photo on the top.

Just for the record, that's a nice pair of caniniform teeth in the maxillae of that croc. Another in the premaxillae, and two more in the dentaries.

BTW, Sereno gave a talk here 2 weeks ago where he briefly showed a head reconstruction of what must be the "boar croc". It's a fantastic beast. Vaguely reminiscent of the temnospondyl Dendrerpeton, only more badass.

In the "animal deathmatch" series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrGbh-6cAZA

TEH HIPPOO IT BEH EETIN MEH!

I seem to recall on one of the discovery/nat geo shows about crocs someone was catching a large nile croc (it may even have been a quest for Gustav) when the croc they had noosed and were in the process of catching at night was killed stone dead by something under water (or undercover of darkness). A large wound attributed to a hippo tooth (tusk?) was found in the middle of it. Can't remember which show though.

Huh! I always thought hippos to be docile creatures!

Although...admittedly, when I read the post title on my blogroll, for some reason I though Hippos were carniverous...or perhaps omniverous, but I see now that the simple, yet classic "predator killed by mama while protecting her baby" routine. lol! Poor Crocodylus nitolicus. :(

Surely you know about the Animal Kingdom Kumite:

http://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/zines/spacemoose/kumate.gif

it was not Australian pygmy hippo! It was a baby Diprotodon! ;-)

I remember an old film with hippos congregating in a drying waterhole and giant catfsh crawling on their backs like that croc.

Amazing photo, but not as amazing as the image in my head when I first saw the headline. I had read "hippos" as "hippies." Now *that* would be a picture! ;)

The ones that went wild in Colombia belonged to Pablo Escobar.

Pablo had a menagerie at his estate, and when he got gunned down, his creatures were sold off.

Except for four of his hippos, which went wild on the estate.

There are now over 20 of them, and a bull and cow escaped into the Magdalena River system. They produced a calf and were seen all over the Magdalena Valley. They were last seen 65 miles form Pablo's estate, where the Colombia government shot the bull.

The last I heard, the owners of Escobar's estate were trying to give the hippos to a zoo, simply because they were a pain in the rump and a major liability. That estate is now open to the public as a tourist attraction!

I heard a zoo was interested in them, but thus, far I can't find any information on them.

Darren:

In other words, anecdotes can be very important.

I quite agree. Provided, of course, that constructive source criticism is applied.

Is anyone aware of such a case ever being reported in the technical literature

I'm not aware of any such reports in the peer-reviewed literature, but I found this mention in Hugh B. Cott's book Looking at Animals: A Zoologist in Africa (Collins, London, 1975). When he's discussing the interspecific relations between crocodiles and hippos he writes:

In July 1956, near Paraa, I saw a crocodile lying in shallow water in two pieces - its body freshly severed in front of the hind limbs. Encounters between hippo and crocodile, with similar results, have been reported from Zambia and South Africa.

Cott's South African reference could perhaps be James Stevenson-Hamilton's Wild Life in South Africa (Cassell, London, 1947), where supposedly an incident where a hippo kills a crocodile is described. But I haven't seen Stevenson-Hamilton's book myself, so I don't know what exactly it says. Any Tet Zoo readers who have access to that book?

(Btw, Paraa is located in the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.)

According to this site, it's either a 'bloat', a 'crash', a 'herd', a 'pod', a 'school', or a 'thunder' or of hippos. (And it would be a 'bask', a 'congregation', a 'float', or a 'nest' of crocodiles.)

Interesting(ish). Herd is the default collective noun for large "ungulates" sensu lato, but I've only ever seen pod and school used for cetaceans (and fish) before. I know hippos are this week's closest living relatives to the cetacea, but presumably this is simply a striking coincidence?

I think I prefer "bloat".

I'm quite proud of being able to say I was chased by a hippo. Proud NOW - at the time I was terrified. I disturbed one that was grazing on a lawn (at night) between some houses by a river in eastern South Africa. Walked round the corner almost straight into it. It ran straight at me and I lit out into some thorn trees and somehow got up one (I don't remember climbing - I sort of floated up one in half a second). I looked down to see it directly below, and then it turned and ran back to the reeds. In my memory the brief moment that I saw it running at me before I turned and fled it seemed to have just the same gait as walking but faster (a lot faster). This is like elephants of course that don't 'run', just 'walk' helluva fast. Is this true of hippos as well? I know that rhinos also look a bit like that when they go fast too but they also change their gait when they go really fast. True or was it just adrenalin-influenced thinking?

Hippos are one of the very rare few digitigrade non-graviportal animals known that are incapable of a suspended stage run. Just like humans are one of the very rare few graviportal plantigrade mammals that _can_ run with a suspended stage. Rhinos are built much like hippos but all species are capable of a suspended stage, in fact, they can all gallop IIRC.

No scientist present in this video of hippo and croc but the behavior is shown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDL83LwfyzA

Looks like the NT pygmy hippo is heading to the NT Museum.

On the subject of crocs, some good news re C. siamensis:

http://media.smh.com.au/world/world-news/siamese-crocodiles-not-extinct…

Yet more amazing pictures.
Comment 7 Jerzy - You tube woodpecker v snake film astonishing.

In other news, did you see Paul Sereno discovered a crocoduck? Guess that'll shut Kirk Cameron up.

The new discoveries are awesome, congrats to the authors (Sereno and Larsson: free pdf here). Minor point: duck-billed Anatosuchus is not among the new taxa, it was named in 2003.

The money shots in Sereno and Larsson are on page 99.

Thanks for posting this, this would help me overcome my fear of crocs

When I hear "Crocodiles interacting with hippopotamus," I can't help but think of Disney's Fantasia.

a nile crocodile 18 feet or 20 feet weighing 1,500-2,000 pounds could have fought back and even killed one of the adult hippos