I’m not misspelling procrastination, alright, I am a master wordsmith. But I’m totally unable to write while this story unfolds.
So my dad is a very smart, quite reserved man who loves animals. He maintains that he is not fond of our very needy cat, who is basically shaped like a feather boa with little stubby black fox feet. She’s stupidly long and soft and fluffy, and they are Not Friends.
Okay, guys? They are Not Friends. This will be important.
So she had a paralysis tick and gave everyone a scare, and while she’s recovering, she’s on The Good Shit and not particularly mobile. And still very needy. So she doesn’t want to be alone but can’t follow people around tripping them the fuck over or ambushing them with her fluffy body the second they sit down. So she takes to mewling sadly while in a collapsed puddle of fluff, her soft belly fur turned up in that weird cat-doughnut shape.
Okay, right. So I come to visit and this is sad. This is a sad thing to happen to a cat I love, so I pick her up. Wait, why is she still mewling? How curious. Am I not good enough for you, cat? Guided by rising or falling levels of purring, I find myself standing next to my dad. The mewling is now incessant. The cat is basically vibrating off my arms. My dad is looking especially reserved and pointedly looking away from me and this cat he Does Not Like and Has Never Liked, Thank You, No I Don’t Find Her Little Fox Stubs Adorable.
I place the cat on his shoulder, where she promptly shifts around until she’s basically a scarf draped around his neck and falls asleep drooling on his ear. Purring. My dad is still refusing to look at me at this stage, but it’s hard to pull off Stoic Man while be-catted.
“Dad,” I say. “Can’t help but notice that she’s only interested in hanging out with you.”
“Not my fault. Don’t even like this damn cat,” he says in a manful fashion, walking quickly off. Wearing his scarf-cat.
From her hysterical cries when someone tries to remove her, it quickly becomes apparent that the cat is only interested in being with my dad. She becomes inconsolable when she can’t see him and my dad, who you would think would be resistant to this, has taken to wearing her as a scarf-cat and lovingly hand-feeding her through her convalescence. There’s nothing stopped her from eating under her own power, just so you know.
Turns out they are actually Best Friends. My dad has been hiding this with remarkable consistency for almost a decade now. He’s been living a double life since we got her nine years ago.
She’s totally fine now. He’s still wearing her like a scarf and if you give him a funny look about it, he will absolutely pretend he is not. This is the hill he will die on. Wearing our fluffy feather-boa cat around his neck.
You probably thought you knew what not giving a fuck looked like.
Well I’m here to tell you you’re wrong.
This is the ideal Zero Fucks Given. You may not like it, but this is what PEAK FUCKLESS looks like:
That is a hippo getting in the way of a crocodile killing a wildebeest.
On purpose.
Hippos aren’t just not afraid of one of the largest and deadliest subspecies of crocodiles on Earth. They ACTIVELY fuck with them, WHILE they’re eating. They will harass crocodiles as they hunt, interrupt them while trying to feed, and just outright annoy them for fun. They’ll chase crocodiles until they become exhausted (crocodiles have very limited stamina due to lactic acid buildup in their muscles and after short periods of intense activity they become nearly paralyzed with their need for rest), then after the crocodiles have dragged themselves onto the banks to rest in the sun, they’ll just keep on messing with them. Nudge them, push them around, bite them to clean their teeth.
Hippos basically treat crocodiles like mobile toothbrushes that need to be harassed into submission first. They will also outright kill crocodiles if they present a significant threat to their young, or when bull hippos need an outlet for their own toxic masculinity. (Testosterone: Not Even Once.)
Or when they just hate crocodiles, because they really hate crocodiles.
Which is why it’s such a big deal when the near-mythical legendary crocodile from Burundi, Gustave, has reportedly been witnessed killing and eating a bull hippo. A hippo is NOT an easy animal for a crocodile to kill, even an extraordinarily large crocodile.
But Gustave is the definition of an extraordinarily large crocodile:
That’s an adult female next to him, probably anywhere from 9-12 feet long. She’s half his length. His exact size is something that will probably never be determined because Nile Crocodiles are extremely difficult to capture alive (especially ones this big, experienced, and clever) and their remains are virtually impossible to recover if they die in the water. But it’s likely Gustave’s size is comparable to the standing Guinness World Record holder, Lolong:
Except maybe bulkier due to the dietary differences in Nile and Saltwater crocs. There’s some skepticism about Gustave’s size and probably healthy speculation about the accuracy of some of the things attributed to him (like that he has killed over 300 people and survived being shot with a rocket launcher; although he DOES have a few distinct scars from bullet wounds and his migratory patterns line up with dozens of human casualties). And it’s possible that he is already dead, because it’s been a few years since there was a reliable sighting.
It IS within the realm of possibility for a Nile Crocodile to reach Gustave’s reported size, though – especially one who has spent so many years successfully avoiding humans. I’ve linked a clone of this video before but mistakenly presented it as a Saltwater crocodile when the footage was in fact taken in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, in southern Africa:
The (Nile) crocodile in this video appears to be about twice the length of its distance from the camera, which looks to me like about 10-12 feet based on the apparent depth of the water and how far the camera is from where it crossed under the boat. This is a HUGE crocodile. I’d be more surprised if it wasn’t 20 feet long. At least.
But basically, that’s about how big a crocodile needs to be for claims of it killing a bull hippo to be believable. Crocodiles get big:
But it’s really not a small feat to take down Mother Nature’s Two Ton Staple Remover™ that thinks murder is fun:
So while crocodiles do like to eat hippos when they can (young hippos if they can isolate them from the protective mother/herd, adult hippos usually only when they are killed by other hippos, most often males in territorial disputes), hippos don’t have as much reason to be afraid of them as, say, any other living thing within ten feet of the water. (There are videos of crocodiles attacking ELEPHANTS, which I will not link here because I’m already way off topic.)
Anyway, to the original point, one of the things hippos are besides fearless is brown. Hippo skin is shades of brown. Not pink.
The lightest and pinkest coloration is around the sensitive areas where the skin is thinner, especially around the eyes and ears, and parts of their jawline.
But sometimes, they do LOOK a lot more pink, especially when they are OUT OF THE WATER or when the sun is really intense:
(this particular image looks like it might have had some saturation boosting)
This is because hippos are very sensitive to DRY SKIN. What makes their skin pink is not exactly sweat, it’s a reddish substance that basically acts as a natural moisturizer that protects their skin from drying out in the intense sun or when they come out of the water. Sometimes people say, incorrectly, that they sweat blood (the second night picture just above is a good depiction of this because you can see it actually running down the side of its belly) because of this, but it’s just a substance that their skin produces to stay hydrated. So they don’t TECHNICALLY sweat pink because it isn’t sweat, meant to regulate heat by cooling the body as it evaporates, but their skin does secrete a substance that does make them look more pink, but isn’t really sweat. So yes and no.
In contrast, here’s a(n adorable) picture of a hippo fully submerged:
And okay, a few more for good measure:
What a bizarre combination of adorable and terrifying.
Also they’re the deadliest animal in Africa, which is saying something, so you should not fuck with them, probably.
Yup, that’s the point you just stay still and let it do whatever the fuck it wants that doesn’t involved you getting eaten.
REALLY FUN FACT for big cats cheetahs are fucking docile as shit
my grandfather ran a cheetah sanctuary in south africa and he’d just lie with them and sleep among them and they’d rub against him and chirp at him they’re big fucking babies
Another Fun Fact: Cheetahs are incredibly nervous animals. One of the (many) reason’s they’re going extinct is that cheetahs are so sensitive and nervous, some of them are literally too nervous to breed. Others will breed, but stress themselves out so much, they’ll lose their cubs.
So zoos with breeding programs had to figure out how to make cheetahs comfortable enough to first of all, get laid and secondly – not spazz themselves into miscarrying.
So what’d they do? They gave the cheetah’s their very own Service Dogs!
The dogs make them feel safe, protected and secure!
Steel Phoenix Studios 