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PARIS (AP) - Aldo looks, eats and lazes like a hippopotamus — but the 3-week-old is only about as long as a human baby — 21 inches. The pygmy hippo, born June 5 at the Paris Zoo, is one of only a few dozen in Europe, bred in a special program to boost the rare species.
There are no more than 3,000 pygmy hippos worldwide, mostly in West African countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau or Liberia, said Juliane Villenain, a biologist at the zoo in the Bois de Vincennes.
Pygmy hippopotamuses are, unlike their much bigger relatives, solitary animals, except during the reproductive season. The female cares for the newborn by herself, as does Aldo's mother Anais, Villenain said.
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