Our amazing planet is full of incredibly wonderful moments, but it’s not every day that you can come across a giant hippo being “attacked” by dozens of turtles who are so much smaller than him. That weird accident happened not long ago to a gentle hippo at the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Before the eyes of the tourists, he became a “hippobus”, right on his own land.
As you can see in the pictures, that poor hippo was about to take a quick bath when several terrapins – for some unknown reason, decide to climb on him and hitch a ride! And when he completely immersed himself in water, he was literally covered by those tiny critters.
That hilarious moment was captured by wildlife photographer Karen van der Kolk on July 17 when she was touring around the famous park. According to the 45-year-old, such a scene was surely a joy to watch.
“It was such a funny scene,” van der Kolk shared. “We stayed the whole morning. A hippo was relaxing in the water. When we arrived one terrapin was sunbathing on the back of the hippo but it quickly led to dozens.”
Van der Kolk also revealed that there were about over 50 terrapins on the back of the hippo back then.
“They climbed up, sometimes falling back into the water,” she said. “More and more little heads swum towards the hippo. At one moment the whole hippo was covered with terrapins, it must have been over 50.”
Eventually, the big guy was forced to stand up and shake them off.
“He had enough when he got out of the water and tried to shake them off, and took a dive,“ she continued. “It made me smile as it was funny to watch.”
Do those humorous pictures make you smile as they did with the photographer? Please share this lovely moment with your friends and family!
H/T: Caters News
Leave a Reply