August 17, Toledo Zoo, part 2

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The Toledo Zoo has excellent gardens and plantings, as well as excellent housing for its critters.

This grass is as close as I got to taking pics of the plantings or gardens on the 17th.  Tall (3-4 feet?), with red seeds.....

As we came into the zoo, our daughter read the sign which told when "enrichment" was for various animals.  We went to see hippo enrichment.

Many years ago the zoo built a terrific space for its hippos.  It has a big pool.  Part of one side of the pool is plexiglass, and it's possible for people to watch the hippos under water.  Did you know they trot along the bottom?  With the water supporting their weight, they are very graceful....



The otters are right next to the hippos, and we were a bit early for hippo enrichment.

How I wish there had been no plexiglas between me and this shot.........

Awwwww......

As hippo enrichment time got closer, we realized it was so crowded in the underwater viewing area that we weren't going to be able to see anything.  Ah well.  We moseyed on, and our sharp-eyed daughter realized there was another area from which we could spy on the hippos through much-smaller pieces of plexiglas.

This was perfect -- we could see, without being packed into a mass of noisy wiggly children.

I'm still using the new-to-me camera.  It was in burst mode.  This is a good thing, if your subject is in motion (but leaves you with even more pictures to winnow through than you expected).

Note smear of treat, falling from upper left.

I'm pretty sure hippos did not evolve to catch treats out of the air......  They're not good at it.  And the people throwing fruit to them weren't very good at that, either.  Note two red things in the water behind the hippo, which I believe are apples, or parts of apples.

In this shot, you can see the plexiglas behind which a multitude are watching the hippos hope for fruit.

Hippos have lots of whiskers on their noses.  This is a closer crop of the above.

Another piece of fruit hits the water (note splash in foreground).

There are two hippos.  Once upon a time, the pair of hippos at the zoo had a baby.  I'm not sure if these are the same two adults or not.

Looking at this, we note how much the artist who made the sculptures near the top of this post simplified the dentition.......

This has to be an excellent way to check on the oral health of a hippo........  In a way that's safe for everyone......

I see the left upper tusk is missing, and the right one looks like it's missing a big piece on the inside-the-mouth surface.  It seems to me that both of those anomalies would be painful....

We amateur naturalists can do a lot of speculating, when we have the opportunity to study this sort of image.  We know hippos eat plants, and we don't think they eat large plants like trees.  We look at how wide their mouths open, and may wonder why their mouths can open in this way.  Not just for eating, I bet.  For "I am fierce; keep your distance!" displays?  Probably -- I know I have heard they are dangerous to crocodiles, and to people in small boats....  For dominance within their own species, for survival of the fittest?  I bet so.

Look at the ridgey roof of the mouth.  The better to help food go down the throat, rather than back out, I bet.  I wonder about those bottom front teeth that go straight forward.  For digging on the bottom of the riverbed, maybe?  It's interesting how much wider the mouth is at the front than it is closer to the skull..... 

I suspect all those whiskers help with finding food in murky water.



Another look at the plexiglas.  Someone is right inside that window, just inches from an adult hippo.  What a cool thing to be able to do!

Here's a closer crop of the above -- I've never noticed that ridge down the middle of their noses before......  I would have said it was flat across there, had I been asked.

So glad we were able to see all of this, especially as we observed from a quiet and peaceful location!

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