The Terrified Baby Hippo Runs away Tiny Birds
His mother has not yet informed him about the birds and hippos.
Birds, for example, are beneficial to the large animals by removing ticks and other parasites.
When a flock of birds descends on this newborn hippo, he reacts instinctively.
He flees.
And flees.
Wildlife photographer Mark Mol captured the pictures in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, where a young hippo appears to be under assault by a flock of birds. However, these birds, known as oxpeckers, may be attempting to help this hippo.
Mold told the Mirror, “He was attempting to clear them off his back by twisting and shaking as he rushed back to the safety of mum and the water.” “With time, the baby will realize that these birds aren’t trying to harm him.”
While the word “oxpecker” may not conjure up images of comfort, these birds may be seen on the backs of cows, bison, and even rhinos. Aside from a young hippo, it appears that most animals don’t mind having a bird or two on their back. Alternatively, the head.
Their techniques, on the other hand, may appear disarming to hippos who aren’t yet well-versed in the ways of the world. Oxpeckers create many wounds in the skin in order to locate their prey, a delicious parasite or two burrowed into the flesh of their host.
On the other hand, the newborn hippo could have a point. The scientific community is divided on whether oxpeckers are genuinely beneficial to large animals, and if the cost of all that pecking is worth it in the first place.
While oxpeckers do consume ticks, zoologist Darren Naish explains on Scienceblogs that they don’t always stop there.
He observes that the birds eat “blood, ear wax, and dead skin that they’scissor’ out of the fur.” “We also found that oxpeckers give pain to their hosts in certain circumstances, that they appear to keep wounds open, and that they can be a total threat.”
The dread, in the instance of this newborn hippo, is all too genuine.
It’s too bad this performance arrived too late for a particular Alfred Hitchcock film.