Hippopotamuses in GURPS

Hippopotamus amphibius

Hippos are commonly considered to be the most dangerous animal in Africa. The bulls are extremely territorial, and the cows very protective of their calves. They are known to attack people without provocation both in and out of the water. People in small watercraft are not safe - hippos will attack the boats, overturning them or crushing them in their jaws before going after the people that have been spilled out.

A bull hippo will claim a stretch of a few hundred meters of river as their own, and assemble a harem of typically ten but sometimes close to a hundred cows. They tolerate other bulls as long as they are sumbissive and do not try to claim his females. Challengers are met with open mouth and bared fangs. Fights involve biting and fencing with their mouths. These fights sometimes lead to death, but more often the weaker individual will withdraw allowing the victor dominion over that stretch of the river and the cows that reside their. Other than the bond between mothers and their calves, hippos do not form real long term relationships. Nonetheless, they like to gather in large groups and rest in close proximity, nearly touching. At night, while feeding, they separate.

Hippos are fairly dirty animals, who deficate and urinate in the water they live in. This commonly leads to filthy water around hippo residences. Dominant males will meet at their territorial boundary and use their tails to fling feces and urine at each other.

Hippos have hundreds of vocalizations, many of which can only be heard underwater. They are some of the noisiest animals in Africa. To humans, their voices sound like grunts, groans, bellows, and loud roars.

In historic times, hippos could be found throughout sub-Saharan Africa and along the entire length of the Nile. In modern times, the range of hippos has been fragmented into a number of small, disconnected populations in sub-Saharan Africa. Prehistoric hippos of the species Hippopotamus antiquus are known from Europe and the British Isles in the Pleistocene - treat it like the modern hippo for game purposes. A giant species of hippo Hippopotamus gorgops lived in Africa in the Miocene and Pliocene and Europe in the Pliocene, but became extinct before the first ice age. H. gorgops had eyes that were atop small stalks. Several species of dwarf hippo are known from various Medeteranian islands (Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Sicily) during the Pleistocene.

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