Here are some really great stories about Hippos. My friend Veronica found them. Shows you that hippos are very cool creatures.
First Story:
One day, a young impala- a graceful African antelope - was drinking by a river, when he was grabbed by a crocodile lurking beneath the muddy surface. The crocodile started to pull its victim underwater. A nearby hippopotamus witnessed the attack and chose to defend the victim.
The furious hippo_ capable of biting a crocodile in two- charged; the crocodile released the impala and swam away. Then the hippo gently nudged the impala to the shore with its nose and onto higher ground. Not content to simply rescue it, the hippo stood guard against other predators for fifteen minutes. Then the two-ton animal began sniffing it and gently licking its wounds.
Twice the hippo took the impala's head into it's mouth in what seemed to be an attempt to get it to stand. But it was mortally wounded. Since hippopotamuses are strictly vegetarian, its interest in the dying impala was purely altruistic. This story is all the more amazing because it is completely documented. A "Life" magazine photographer, Dick Reucassel, was present for the incident and recorded it all on film.
Second Story:
Nine wild African dogs were pursuing an impala. Half the pack, the witnesses could see, was waiting in the bushes on the other side of some water while the first half chased the now tiring impala toward their waiting companions.
A hippopotamus swam toward the weakening buck and prevented it from going to the other side where the dogs were laying in wait; instead, it nudged it in the opposite direction. As the exhausted impala lost energy, the hippo would nudge it forward. When the duo finally reached safe ground, the impala was too exhausted to make it onto dry land, so the hippo nudged it with its snout. The impala began shivering violently. Too weak to make it on its own, it was on the verge of collapse.
The hippopotamus then opened its gigantic mouth (so large it could encompass the small antelope without actually touching it) and repeatedly breathed life into the animal until it regained its strength and ran off. In an article he wrote for "BBC Wildlife" magazine, African researcher Harry Erwee described the incident as "awe-inspiring." I have nothing to add to that.