This page is an African river. Move your pointer across the water and your animal will wade, glide, hover or leap after you. Choose a different animal at the bottom, and tap the notes to open them.
The Okavango right now checking the sky…
Hippos stay in the water all day to keep cool and stop their skin drying out, and come out at night to graze.
A hippo is too heavy to float. It walks or bounces along the bottom, and can hold its breath for about five minutes.
Hippo skin oozes a reddish oil that works as sunscreen and helps to keep wounds clean. People once thought it was blood.
A hippo can open its mouth almost 150 degrees. The yawn is a warning, showing teeth that can be half a metre long.
Hippos are among the most dangerous large animals in Africa, and can run faster than a person over a short distance.
The hippo's closest living relatives are whales and dolphins.
Meet them all
Hippopotamus amphibius
A huge, barrel-shaped animal that spends the day in the water with only its eyes, ears and nostrils showing.
Crocodylus niloticus
Africa's largest reptile: armoured, olive-brown and patient, with a long snout and a powerful tail.
Phoeniconaias minor
A tall pink bird with a long neck, long legs and a bent beak, gathering in flocks of many thousands.
Icthyophaga vocifer
A striking eagle with a white head and chest, chestnut body and black wings, never far from water.
Ceryle rudis
A black and white kingfisher with a shaggy crest and a long, dagger-like beak, often seen hovering over water.
Pyxicephalus adspersus
One of the biggest frogs in the world: olive green, heavy and wide-mouthed, appearing in numbers after rain.
Through the year
These animals can be seen all year round. In the dry season the rivers and waterholes shrink, and everything gathers at what is left. The animal following you is shown in red.
Good to know
For half the year little rain falls. Rivers shrink to pools, and animals walk for miles to reach them.
The Okavango river never reaches the sea. It spreads out into a huge inland delta in the Kalahari and soaks away.
Some Rift Valley lakes are so salty and caustic that almost nothing lives in them, except the algae that flamingos eat.
Tall papyrus and reed beds line the water, hiding birds, frogs and the occasional crocodile.
On safari, nobody stands at the edge of a river. Hippos and crocodiles are both far quicker than they look.
Dams and water taken for farming can dry out a river hundreds of miles downstream. Wetland charities work to protect them.
Real photos of the animals on this page. Tap one to see it bigger.
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under free licences. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews. Open a photo to see who took it.
In a dry land, a river is where every animal has to come sooner or later. That is what makes it the best place to watch, and the most dangerous place to drink.
Back to the topThese live somewhere else: choosing one takes you to their page.
These live somewhere else: choosing one takes you to their page.
These live somewhere else: choosing one takes you to their page.
Animals from other parts of the world live on their own pages: change area.