Hippos' constant defecating turns African pools into communal guts
Hippopotamuses can eat nearly 100 pounds of food daily—and, as a result, they fill the pools where they spend much of their lives with huge amounts of poop.
Hippopotamuses can eat nearly 100 pounds of food daily—and, as a result, they fill the pools where they spend much of their lives with huge amounts of poop.
Plants & Animals
Dec 8, 2021
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73
A fossil of an extinct species of hippo that is over one million years old has been discovered in Somerset by researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Leicester. This finding surpasses the ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 4, 2021
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104
A new study shows that the similarly smooth, nearly hairless skin of whales and hippopotamuses evolved independently. The work suggests that their last common ancestor was likely a land-dwelling mammal, uprooting current ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 1, 2021
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294
The excrement of hippos plays an important role in the ecosystem of African lakes and rivers. Because there are fewer and fewer hippos, this ecosystem is in danger. In the long term, this could lead to food shortages at Lake ...
Plants & Animals
May 1, 2019
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248
Ecologists have long known that agricultural and sewage pollution can cause low oxygen conditions and fish kills in rivers. A study published today in Nature Communications reports that hippo waste can have a similar effect ...
Environment
May 16, 2018
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128
The average hippo weighs more than 3,000 pounds and consumes about 100 pounds of vegetation daily. This naturally results in large quantities of dung being deposited into the rivers and lakes where hippos spend their days.
Ecology
May 14, 2018
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88
Loss of megaherbivores such as elephants and hippos can allow woody plants and non-grassy herbs and flowering plants to encroach on grasslands in African national parks, according to a new University of Utah study, published ...
Ecology
Sep 12, 2016
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43
During an animal's embryonic development, a chemical chain reaction known as Hippo directs organs to grow to just the right size and no larger. Now Johns Hopkins researchers working with laboratory flies report that this ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 28, 2016
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7
Although fruit flies don't develop cancer, cancer and stem cell researchers have been learning a great deal from fruit flies - in particular, mutant flies with overgrown organs that resemble hippopotamuses.
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 2, 2015
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367
Think of a waterfall, and you might see why cell-signaling pathways are important to cancer research. As water cascades, it impacts everything downstream. And everything upstream affects the waterfall.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 9, 2015
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16