The hippopotamus, also called the African river horse, is a huge, 3- to 4-ton animal. It grows to 14 feet long and between 5 and 6 feet tall. Next to the elephant it is the world’s heaviest land animal. Its enormous head has tiny ears and small eyes on each side of its lumpy forehead. It is equipped with a sharp-toothed mouth that can cut a crocodile in half with one bite and even bite another hippo viciously when they are fighting.
The Creator has provided this water-loving beast with nostrils located so that it can lie underwater with just the top of its nose above the surface. If it goes completely under, valves automatically close so it can stay down for five minutes or more.
Short, thick legs with wide feet are spaced far apart to support its great weight when on land, but they hardly look strong enough. Yet a hippo can gallop with surprising speed and can easily outrun a man. It lives in streams, rivers or lakes where mud baths are available. It goes ashore at times to feed on grass and rough vegetation to add to its usual diet of water plants. A mature hippo eats about 200 pounds of vegetation a day.
A mother hippo usually gives birth to one, 50- to 70-pound, pink baby a year. A baby hippo is rather ugly with its big head and loose skin over rolls of fat, but each mother shows her baby lots of attention. She guards it carefully and often lets it ride on top of her head. The little one nurses for over a year.
A hippo’s skin is about two inches thick with many wrinkles that attract irritating insects. Knowing this, a variety of birds ride on the hippo’s back to feast on these pests. The hippo seems to realize these riders are helpful and does not scare them away. This is another example of how the Creator often provides two extremely different creatures to benefit each other. Another provision of His care is how hippos avoid sunburn when out of water in the hot African sunshine. Glands lying just under their skin moisten it, much like suntan lotion protects your skin.
As we consider the care the Lord God gives every creature, we are reminded that His loving thoughts toward us are even more wonderful. Animals have only one life, but we have a life after death. While most people hope to be in heaven, many forget that no one can enter there still having their sins, and they need to follow the Bible’s instruction: “Prepare to meet thy God” (Amos 4:1212Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. (Amos 4:12)).
Happily we read how God planned for this: “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). Each of us must make this our own personal belief. Each needs to confess to the Lord Jesus that he or she is a sinner and in faith accept Him as Saviour. Have you done this?
NOVEMBER 3, 1996
ML-11/03/1996