24/10/2024
"Lazy" water loungers? Far more to them:
By now, you guys should have noticed when I daily post like this, one post always links up to the other to reveal more about a certain animal, or that animal’s behaviour. So, by reading the first post you have a better understanding and the beginning of the description [whatever revealing and largely unknown characteristic that may be] about a certain animal.
I explained a bit about that dangerous Mara River crossing and the Nile crocs littering that crossing... and some also lurking further downstream to await the drowned carcasses. There is another dangerous animal found there. The common hippo. We know Africa’s most dangerous large animal is that more commonly seen, larger hippo and that it’s responsible for about 200 human deaths every year. That is what we know them as; Lazy animals that are really super dangerous. Allow me to reveal an unbelievable characteristic. A caring and compassionate side we’ll never think they have. Their secretive and wonderful empathic side.
Most of us have heard stories about the empathic qualities of whales, like when they go out of their way to help another species. Empathy and intelligence are strongly linked so, therefore, for a hippo to show empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Compassion) means it must have significant intelligence – like any whale, not so?
Yes, these are clever animals so no wonder their closest relation are whales. Read further...
Like chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins (and that includes the largest dolphin – the orca/killer whale); whales; few others and yes, also humans because in biological terms, we are also animals. Like the species I mentioned, hippos also have spindle neurons in their brain. Spindle neurons are special cells responsible for emotions, empathy and greater social interactions – and these fantastic qualities lead to altruistic behaviour in any species boasting those specialized cells inside their brain. These types of animals are, therefore, capable of rescue of their own kind as well as another species.
* 'Altruistic behaviour’ -- kindness; unselfishness. Showing a selfless concern for the well-being of others, without care for one's own interests.
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