Hippos Can’t Swim, But It Turns Out They Can Fly

New research has discovered that the bodacious bodies of hippos go airborne when they trot, building up enough speed to get all four of their trotters off of the ground simultaneously. They might not be giving Superman a run for his money, but the discovery has revealed that these animals are more athletic than we give them credit for, even if they can’t swim.

If you clicked on this article incredulous at the accusation that hippos can’t swim, then hoo boy, do we have news for you. Despite the new-to-science discovery that they get airborne on land (more on this later), it’s also true that hippos can’t swim; instead, they walk and bounce across the riverbed. This is because they are too dense to float at weights of around 2,000 kilograms (4,409 pounds), so instead need to push off of something to keep returning to the surface.

This was demonstrated spectacularly by Cincinnati Zoo’s world’s famous hippo Fiona back in 2020.

What they lack in swimming skills it seems they make up for in their talent for trotting, as a new analysis has revealed that they can get all four feet off the ground simultaneously for around 15 percent of the time when going full speed. The discovery is thought to be a world-first, changing the way we view hippos’ athleticism.

“We show with basic video footage that hippos essentially only trot even at near-maximal speeds, and at those speeds they do get airborne with all four feet,” said study co-author Professor John R Hutchinson on X , “Which, to our knowledge, is new to science -- and cool!”

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Cool is most definitely the right word. In a YouTube video that was integral to the discovery, you can actually see the hippos’ talent at work. As it bounds along the muddy ground, sure enough, all four feet are in the air together several times as it continues on its merry way.

“Our study was about as simple as biomechanics research can get,” Hutchinson said in a statement . “Anyone can take a camera or internet videos and learn something about how animals move from that footage.”

“It’s hard to work with hippos as they tend to stick to the water, and very seldom are trained to be studied in zoo collections. They’re also very dangerous. That’s part of the reason why science knew little about how hippos move before our research.”

Hippos sit alongside the hoofed ungulates in the order Artiodactyla, but they themselves don’t have hooves. Instead, hippos have unique, tough, and fleshy feet with webbed toes that support them well on land, and help them move through the water.

As this new research shows, they trot even when moving at high speed and as a result, their feet can leave the ground for up to 0.3 seconds. It’s a flight time that might not get you far, but one that puts them at an impressive level of athleticism – and it seems the study authors agree.

“Hippos exhibit relatively greater athletic capacity than elephants in several ways,” they wrote, “but perhaps not greater than rhinoceroses .”

Well, you can’t beat ‘em all.

The study is published in PeerJ .