Happy New Year Hippos!
Stop what you’re doing right now and look at these stinking cute pictures of Fritz, the baby brother of the celebrated Cincinnati Zoo hippopotamus Fiona, stealing the show with his toothy grin.
“Fritz showing us his smile… and new teeth coming in!” the zoo tweeted this week.
Fritz, who was born Aug. 3, did appear to be smiling as he propelled himself around the 70,000-gallon pool at Hippo Cove. Twitter users couldn’t get enough of Fritz’s broad smile.
“I’d lay my life on the line for Fritz,” one user tweeted.
“Not to be dramatic,” another user said, “but I would die for Fritz,”
Fritz, who weighed 330 pounds at a recent weigh-in, is a bouncing baby boy in the most literal sense. Hippos don’t swim, exactly, but use their powerful legs to propel themselves through water. They spend a lot of time bouncing off the walls and bottoms of pools, according to a piece in The Atlantic written when Fiona was just a wee thing.
And tiny she was at birth.
Born six weeks prematurely on Jan. 24, 2017, Fiona was a puny 29 pounds, about half the previous record for the lowest birth weight for a member of her species. She almost didn’t make it and received life-saving care at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s nationally renowned Vascular Access Team.
Related: Fiona, The Most Beloved Hippo In The World, Has A Beau: Video
Fritz weighed about twice as much as his big sister when he made his arrival last August and, at the rate he’s growing, it won’t take long for him to grow to be the largest of the siblings.Hippos are among the largest mammals on Earth, with males weighing from 3,500 to 9,920 pounds at maturity and females topping out at around 3,000 pounds.
And though Fritz is gaining celebrity on social media, don’t expect Fiona, who will turn 6 early next year, to go all shrinking violet and hide in the corner of the pool. Fiona has a beau (click for the video) and her legions of fans are taking in every minute of the “courtship.”
Baby hippos are cute!