It is not uncommon to wonder about a hippopotamus as the loudest farting animal on land. The physical features of them simultaneously give away such conceptions. But how do hippos really fart? The truth is, a hippo’s fart isn’t loud at all. It rather sounds like playing cards getting hit by a table fan. In other words, it is almost a silent gesture by them.
But they do defecate in very large proportions. Sometimes they poop so much that it may cause damages to nature. But that’s just how things are for them. So let’s jump into the details right away.
Sound of a hippopotamus farting
The flatulence of hippopotami is almost silent. To hear the sound of it you need to get really close. But hippos don’t like that. You always need to keep your eyes open for a charging hippo when got too close to them.
Hippopotami have a very loud vocal sound though. Wild hippopotami can make sounds up to 115 decibels. But then what is the sound that we hear during a hippopotamus pooping? The sound we hear isn’t the flatulence sound. It is rather the sound of stool being sprayed by the dynamic tail.
How do hippos fart?
There seems to be a piece of misleading information on the internet that a hippopotamus farts through its mouth. Their logic behind this statement happens to be that, hippos have stomachs closer to the mouth.
Except for a hippopotamus never does that. Hippopotami do have a complex three-chambered stomach & it is closer to the head. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they need to fart through their mouths.
They don’t even chew their cud as do the cows. Whatever greens a hippo eats directly goes to the stomach which functions as a biological fermentation chamber.
They defecate as any animal would & that is through the small hole located at their bottom. The pooping & farting takes place at the same time. Then comes the tail with its vigorous action to spray the dung in all directions.
Loudest or longest?
Hippopotami may not have the loudest fart but they certainly have the longest. In the wild their pooping & farting can last for more than 10 seconds.
It is undoubtedly true that a hippo’s fart exceeds that of all the other African animals.
The biggest fart ever recorded in captivity
Hippos can eat up to 40 kg of grass & vegetation daily. It’s not hard to imagine what the unwanted gases of an animal would smell like which eats up to such portions.
The biggest one ever recorded though was in a zoo. A group of families was the spectators of this hilarious poop explosion.
Should you be concerned about the smell?
The unwanted gases always have to come out & especially for a huge hippopotamus. For an animal that eats massive portions of greens & never chews it’s cud, it’s farts also smell horrible.
But that’s not all you should be concerned about.
The vigorous tail that they use for spraying the dung is equally dangerous. The radius for this dung spraying can range up to 10 meters. Nobody wants hippo wastes all over themselves. That would totally ruin the safari for them.
Pros and cons of hippopotamus stool
Advantages of hippopotamus defecation:
- Hippopotami’s feces provide important nutrition to aquatic creatures.
- The excretion also helps the soil of Africa to be more fertile.
- Hippopotamuses act as an important link between the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
The disadvantages of hippopotamus defecation:
- Too much hippo dung may cause damage to aquatic creatures.
- Hippopotamus flatulence has a lot of methane gas in them which is actually more detrimental to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
- Hippopotami act as a silicon pump for the aquatic ecosystems of the lakes of Africa. They eat a lot of grass enriched with silica that comes out with their excretion. This silicon needs to be in a certain ratio in the waters of Africa. Anything less or more than that might lead to algal blooms causing fishes & aquatic plants to die.
Conclusion
A hippopotamus excretion has both good & bad effects on nature. However, nature eventually works its way out. Because hippos have survived like that for hundreds of years. If the wrong people don’t intersect their territories & wipe them up completely, we can expect them to survive hundreds of years more.
Related Posts:
