Yahoo Answers is shutting down on 4 May 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Hippo kills?
So they say that hippopotamuses kill the most humans of any animals in Africa. Knowing that hippos are supposed to be herbivores, but somewhat loose on the concept, have any of them been known to eat a human killed?
3 Answers
- ?Lv 71 week agoFavourite answer
They wouldn't be able to digest a human. Ungulates are typically herbivorous and many employ specialized gut bacteria to allow them to digest cellulose.
Source(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungulate - ?Lv 41 week ago
No, they do not eat humans and they do not kill them in the first place by hunting them as a food source.
The main reasons that people are killed by hippos is when people are in boats and either come up on a hippo by surprise, or they know hippos are there and they venture too close. People are also killed on land by surprise encounters with hippos or by getting up too close to them.
Hippos attack out of self-defence and they are much more prone to do this if they have young with them. The hippo may only intend to scare you off but a combination of their size, mass, their huge teeth and possibly being in water, often means the encounter ends in death for the human or in severe injuries from which they later die.
