Baby Pygmy Hippo Born At Virginia Zoo And She Needs A Name
One of the quirkier holiday tunes we play when we’re in Christmas K104.7 mode is Gayla Peevey’s “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” from 1953. As the story goes, the song’s popularity helped the Oklahoma City Zoo acquire an actual hippopotamus on Christmas of that year.
Another U.S. zoo got a hippo for the holidays in 2022. According to WRIC-TV, a pygmy hippopotamus was born on December 6th at the Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia. The 16-pound baby girl was the size of a shoe box. She will someday grow to nearly 600 pounds.
Native to West Africa, pygmy hippos are an endangered species, with only about 2,500 left in the wild. The baby at the Metro Richmond Zoo, the second of her kind to be born there, has been resting with her mother, Iris, in a special enclosure while she waits for her name. That’s where you come in.
The folks at the Metro Richmond Zoo are asking for the public’s help in naming their newest addition. If you have any ideas, you can chime in on the zoo’s Facebook post. Perhaps watching this video of the little one will inspire you:
