00:03Today we are in the Ituri Rainforest area at the River Hippopotamus exhibit and we are seeing
00:11Funani and Tony. Tony is now approaching nine months of age and as a typical male river hippo
00:18does he's exploring a lot more and he's venturing further away from his mom Funani. However Funani
00:24is always there to offer any little encouragement that he might need as he works through learning
00:30about this brave new world.
00:50It's really important for us as keepers to make sure that those
00:54skills are being learned and making sure that she's there to watch him but give him that
00:59space that he needs and she's doing everything that a mom hippo would do.
01:10Tony weighs in close to about 600 pounds at this point. He is definitely eating more solids.
01:18He's still nursing. We see some nursing sessions here and there.
01:25How big will Tony be? That's the million dollar question. Males are typically bigger. They can
01:32get up to 10,000 pounds. Of course we don't know exactly how much he's going to weigh when
01:37he becomes a full adult male hippo. However, we can look at the size of his parents. His
01:43mom is about 3,500 pounds and his dad is just over 4,000 pounds. So he could very well
01:49be
01:49right around his dad's size.
01:54Tony's personality has developed quite a bit over the last almost nine months. Originally
01:59he seemed very fearless and then he would get shy. The behavior that he's showing around
02:05us keepers is much more engaging.
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