What I love about hippos is that they are too heavy to swim, they basically sink to the bottom where they walk and eat all the vegetation
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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Fun fact: weight isn't what causes one to sink; density is
And they basically jump from the bottom to surface, which they can do very quickly
Aren’t mosquitoes the most dangerous animal on earth? I guess it depends what measure you’re using, and how you define ‘animal’. If it’s how many human deaths they cause, mosquitoes are at the top of the list and humans are second, with many others coming in before hippos. I can’t really think of another relevant measure. Even if you disregard invertebrates as being animals, I’m pretty sure that dogs and crocodiles kill many more humans than hippos each year.
Sure, they’re bloody dangerous, but I can’t think of a single way of measuring ‘most dangerous animals in the world’ that puts hippos at the top of the list. I’m happy to be corrected though.
Maybe some kind of ratio like
People having touched the animal/ People survived having touched the animal
Mosquitoes are just the transfer vector, virus do the killing. Virus are not animals and it's debatable if they are even alive.
I wanted to link to The Merry Flea poem here, but could only find a bad youtube video of it, so be warned
Guns are just the transfer vector for bullets and the hippos are just a transfer vector for physics. The spread of malaria (as one example) is directly caused by mosquitos and nobody serious would argue that point.
Maybe based on the number of humans killed per animal? I don't know either
The anti-capybara.
Wouldn't they be vegan? I assume they don't consume dairy or eggs.
Vegetarian is the dietary restriction, Vegan is more of a moral stance. As is, the definition of Vegan that most go by isn't about not eating any animal products, but about reducing animal exploitation and harm as far as possible and practicable. I don't think Hippos have any issue with harming anyone haha
Also, fun fact: The original definition of Vegetarian actually did exclude eating dairy or eggs. The Vegetarians that did eat those were called Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian, but there were so many of them that the term got abbreviated to just Vegetarian, which basically made Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarians the default definition. Language is fun like that
But then the language also changed to vegan meaning no meat no dairy no eggs because it's written on products meaning exactly this and not meaning a moral stance of the product or the producer.
Kinda! The Yellow V-Label actually does have more components to it than just what the food is made of. For example, coconut milk that is made from coconuts that were harvested by trained monkeys would not receive that label. Neither would products that use animal products in their packaging (like Casein-based glue).
The term a lot of labelling actually prefers nowadays is "Plant-based". That term only refers to whether the product itself contains animal derivatives and nothing more and has much less legal protection.
There's also a weird bonus safeguard in place - Donald Watson, the guy who coined the term "vegan" did so specifically because he was pissed about Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarians changing the meaning of the word. Most vegans are aware of that, and do take care to not change the meaning any further
You seem to be wrong about the packaging criteria:
Packaging
The V-Label does not exclude products whose packaging contains animal-derived products. However, companies are encouraged to voluntarily avoid using packaging containing animal-derived products.
Oh, good to know! :o I guess I misremembered it
Hey I remember that!
Turns out I wasn't crazy or had bad memory, it was the definition that changed over time 🤣
"Get out of the water, kids, the omelette is done!"
do vegans kill wantonly?
Depends on who is giving us unwanted health advice about our diet.
When it comes to pests killed in the course of farming? Absolutely
Honestly I think it's usually just because you are getting in a hippo's way and they get pissy but like 3-ton muscle chonk pissy. I'd imagine to genuinely be hated by a hippo you have to have way more dedication.
"Getting in their way" is a very liberal intepretation of " being in line of sight"
Don't hippos engage in cannibalism or is that just like a matter of desperation thing like most other animals
It's rare, probably desperation mostly but we think sometimes also just pure unbridled rage.
Lmao this guy is posing as a hippo scientist for internet cred!
Also, they practically propel themselves with their dung, dear lord do they spray that dung
Mosquitoes have hippos beat by lightyears as far as body counts go, and hippos are way easier to avoid than mosquitoes, which is properly terrifying. But yeah, hateful, hateful hippos.
Herbivores*
How has no one said this yet? All this talk about what defines they eat and not one person who said the most obvious thing, something that everyone should know.