We are guilty of an egregious oversight—an enormous, hippopotamus-sized hole—in our coverage of things to do this weekend. Because while David Sedaris and Lil Wayne have their charms, no beloved essayist or popular rapper on the planet can run 31 to 40 kilometers an hour despite weighing in at an average 3,310 pounds.
For the first time in 16 years, when Papa died at the ripe old hippo age of 53, hippopotamuses are at the Dallas Zoo. Adhama and his lady pal Boipelo arrived at the zoo last month, and have since been settling into their fancy new digs at the Simmons Hippo Outpost, a $14 million exhibit that qualifies as the zoo’s biggest since the “Giants of the Savanna” habitat opened in 2010. The outpost opens to the public today.
The Dallas Morning News has a good story about the hippos and their new 2.1-acre living space, although it may lack some of the hyperbole that hippos, that most impressive of land mammals, deserve. We are not afraid to go there. Hippos are great, maybe the greatest, animal. Odd and fierce, the hippo is both easy to anthropomorphize (something about its unhurried confidence and portly frame feels very relatable) and absolutely terrifying: Hippos are one of the deadliest animals on the planet. And these are vegetarians.
Their awkward grace has long made them the subjects of art and myth, from ancient Egypt to Disney’s Fantasia, William the Faience Hippopotamus to Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Despite the flourishing of Pablo Escobar’s escaped hippos in Colombia, the hippopotamus remains a vulnerable species, and this new exhibit at the Dallas Zoo should be a reminder of the importance of conservation efforts. It’s also an opportunity to see the hippo, the water horse, the prince of the waterhole, the guardian of the Nile, the tusked defender, the slippery beast, the hungry one, the chewer of grass, in a cool new habitat.
There are some perks to visiting the exhibit this opening weekend, including the potential to bring home some hippo toys and take pictures with a person in a hippo costume. The exhibit, which will also feature an upper-level habitat with the zoo’s okapi herd, includes a window so you can view Adhama and Boipelo underwater. Make sure Adhama and Boipelo feel welcome.
For now, we’ll leave you with an installment of the Dallas Zoo’s “Meet Our Hippos” video series.
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