Hippos, often perceived as ungraceful creatures, have been found to exhibit surprising agility when moving on land. According to a study led by Professor John Hutchinson at the Royal Veterinary College and researcher Emily Pringle, hippos can gallop with all four hooves off the ground for 15% of the time they are trotting. This discovery was made after analyzing footage of hippos from Flamingo Land in Yorkshire and online videos.
The researchers analyzed 169 cycles of locomotion from 32 individual hippos, revealing that the fastest-moving hippos become airborne for substantial periods, about 15% of the stride cycle or 0.3 seconds. This finding was unexpected, given that hippos spend much of their time in water and that similarly heavyweight mammals like elephants cannot gallop.
Professor Hutchinson stated that the study was simple and that anyone can learn something about an animal’s movement from camera or internet footage. He also mentioned that working with hippos is challenging due to their water-bound nature, lack of training, and danger. This lack of research on hippo movement was partly due to these factors. The researchers expressed their delight at providing the first study focused solely on revealing how hippos walk and run, and were surprised to see how hippos become airborne when moving quickly.
