Fiona Gets a New Aunt (or Uncle) at Animal Kingdom
As superhippo Fiona celebrates her first birthday, her family tree gets a cute new branch. Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida recently welcomed a new baby Nile hippo, their first hippo birth in 13 years.
So what’s the family connection? The new baby’s father is also the father of Bibi, Fiona’s mother. This makes the new arrival Fiona’s aunt or uncle — the keepers haven’t gotten close enough to the new baby to determine its gender.
Awwww! Fiona’s tiny uncle/aunt is precious!
The earsies! The earsies! Hippo earsies are the best!
Flippety flippety!!
What a cutie! Video won’t play for me, but that’s okay. The still photo provides ample evidence of Teh Qte.
Fiona is my First Baby Hippo Love, but her little aunt or uncle is very sweet looking. And I’m sure I appreciate this all the more because of Fiona. Fiona has certainly succeeded as Ambassador of the Species!
P.S. to NTMTOM: I love all the Cutetropolis Fiona-themed banners-headers-whatever-they’re-called!
Cool, eh? I’m keeping these pictures up there until after her real birthday on the 24th.
To further confuse matters, the father of this new baby hippo (and also the father of Bibi) is named Henry! Of course, he’s NOT the same Henry who fathered Fiona.
Well, they say a girl looks for a guy who reminds her of her dad..! 😉
Congrats to the Fiona family! Yee-hah!
So weeeeeee! <3
The flippety ears are wonderful, but I was melted into a little puddle when the baby rested its wee head on mama’s cheek. Squeee!
Yes! So sweet!!
A wee little hippo droplet!
I got so used to seeing Fiona raised by hand that my first reaction on watching the video was “The baby’s too little! It’s dangerous to be in the water. It’ll drown! The mama is too big, she’ll roll over and hurt it! It doesn’t know how to hold its breath yet, it shouldn’t be underwater!”
Then I got a grip and realized this is how it’s SUPPOSED to be. But that’s still a very small baby relative to the size of the mother, and it’s still weird to think of something being born knowing how to submerge.
I looked it up (I thought I remembered reading this) — hippos can nurse underwater. What else nurses underwater besides whales? Seals, maybe, or do they do that on land or an ice floe? Otters float belly up, they could nurse in air. Hippos are born semi-aquatic, apparently.