Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

There is one astonishing African animal that kills more humans than any other. What might that animal be, you might ask, if you hadn’t noticed the heading of this article. Is it the king of the beasts, the lion? Or possibly the lithe and solitary leopard? Or do the elephants and rhinos use their respective nasal oddities to kill all the humans? And on and on you go, talking up the black mamba, the Botswanan Biting Beetle and Winnie Mandela, until finally I am left with little choice but to point out that this article is about the hippopotamus.

Dis be our waterhole, Holmes

The name ‘hippopotamus’ comes from an ancient Greek term of abuse meaning ‘river horse’. “Hey, Pythagoras,” the ancient Greeks would say. “Why don’t you give the right-angled triangles a rest, you stupid river horse?” And they’d all laugh at him for being such a square. The ancient Greeks may have been the founders of much of Western society and science, but they were still, for the most part, insufferable jerks.

(Pythagoras, on the other hand, took their ‘square of a hippopotamus’ taunts and turned them to his geometric advantage, proving – albeit with minor adjustments – the mathematical theorem after which he’d been named.)

Today, the hippos have reclaimed the historical term of abuse and wear it as a badge of pride, much like other historically ostracised groups (eg homosexuals, African-Americans, the cast of Criminal Minds). “We be river horses, cracker,” gangs of hippos will proudly proclaim. “And dis be our water hole.”

While many claim that these hippos’ use of ghetto slang is inappropriate and unbecoming, that hasn’t stopped the giant semi-aquatic mammals from forming unruly gangs. These gangs roam the back streets of the African savannah, peddling drugs, wallowing in mud and thumbing their noses at society (this was previously considered impossible, due to both the enormous nasal cavities of the hippo, as well as their absence of thumbs. Zoologists have once again been left with egg on their braces).

The hippo gang problem remains unsolved. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, working well outside his jurisdiction, proposed that the gangs be infiltrated by Johnny Depp, who could bring them undone from the inside. Depp refused and, tragically, went on to make Charlie and the Chocolate Factory instead. An alternative solution, offered by a Professor Gale from the University of Kansas, was to immerse the hippo gangs in water and hope they melted. This solution was rejected on the grounds that a) the hippos were already immersed in water with no discernible melting taking place and b) there is a difference between solving a problem and dissolving it.

So the hippo gangs continue to rule the underbelly of the African jungle, misusing urban slang and punishing all who dare venture onto their territory. Maybe next time the Greeks will think twice before unleashing their cruel taunts against these noble megafauna*.

* Note: assumes time will loop back on itself, recreating the era of the ancient Greeks

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