A pygmy hippopotamus was born in the Nyíregyháza Zoo, and the offspring, named Gerzson, was presented to visitors of the Sóstó Park Spa attraction on Wednesday.
The bull, born in early spring, weighed six kilograms at birth and 13 kilograms at six weeks, and has been gaining about a quarter of a kilogram a day ever since. Its bodyweight may reach 300 kilograms when it reaches maturity, Zsuzsa Révészné Petró, the park’s head of education, told MTI on the spot.
She explained that Gerzson’s parents have been living in the Nyíregyháza Zoo since 2009. 23-year-old Broutille is from France, while his partner, 15-year-old Hamlet, came from Denmark as part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP). This is the fourth time that the breeding pair has had offspring: calves born in 2011, 2015, and 2017 are now living in another zoo.
Photo by Attila Balázs/MTI
Broutille is again very attentive, nursing her 190-day-old calf four or five times a day, and the little one has already started to taste a solid diet of hay, fruit, and vegetables, and has taken over the hippo show in the Tarzan’s Path runway.
As the park’s newest animal was born in early spring, on Gerzson’s Day, that’s the name given to him by his caretakers, the head of the department added.
Photo by Attila Balázs/MTI
While its relative, the Nile hippo, was known in antiquity, the pygmy hippo is one of the latest large mammal species to be discovered, at the end of the 19th century. That’s because the shy, hidden creature lives in the depths of the West African rainforests, where the white man has never been.
Photo by Attila Balázs/MTI
The birth of the pygmy hippo is a scientific peculiarity, as 14 individuals have been born in zoos around the world in the last year, and male offspring are born much less frequently than females.
Featured image via Attila Balázs/MTI