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Tess Dobre pops into Adelaide Zoo.
Date:24/04/2009
Hey hey Wilders!! Well it's not every day you come face to face with a 3000 kilo hippo, but that's where I found myself the other day when we popped into the Adelaide Zoo to look at the role different mothers play in the animal kingdom!!
I definitely discovered a thing or two about the mummy hippo, that's for sure! She's one feisty woman! If a male hippo or human comes between her and her calf, she'll fire up. In fact, male hippos have a silent rule that their fights are only ever head on - but with females, there are no rules, if a mother feels threatened she'll attack anywhere! Imagine a 3 tonne Mum storming after you!
But my day wasn't all about hippos, we also dropped in to say hello to the giraffes and I found out about their mother-child relationship! Did you know that a baby giraffe weighs around 70 kilos at birth and learns to walk just a few hours later?! Wow.
Next we checked out the young yellow foot wallabies and these particular ones have a very interesting job ahead of them. They're going to grow up to be foster mums! They'll have endangered blackflanked wallabies put in their pouches and then they'll raise them as their own! So cool. This will give the blackflanked wallabies a better chance of survival.
And how cool is this - wallaby mums definitely have a nice set of skills. They have different types of milk that come out each teat (sort of like "pick a flavour") and if they have young in their pouch and don't want another joey to hop in, they can tighten their pouch!!
Our only problem with the wallabies though, was that they liked our cameraman Chris too much! When we were trying to get shots of them they would just bounce on up and settle themselves on his shoulders. Haha. ANYwayyyy, I'm off Wilders, keep it real and I'll catch you round!
See ya! :D
