Often when going out on a safari, there are old “folk” stories that go around about certain animals or situations. Unfortunately these are often picked up by and used by younger and less experienced guides. Rather than doing a bit of research and correcting themselves, they run with it as it sounds fun and interesting to their guests.

We have decided to start a new part series with some of our blogs where we will have a look at these questions, squash the fairytales and give the right answers to these questions with a bit more of an explanation as to how and why.

Can hippos swim or do they just float?

Often when guests first arrive at the lodge, there will be a beautiful waterhole with hippos in it, or stopping for their first evening sundowner at a dam with a group of hippos there, one question always comes about, “are they swimming?”.

The truth is, hippos cannot swim at all. If they could swim, they would either have webbed feet to aid with paddling along, or they would have large tails like dugongs and manatees to thrust themselves through the water. If they had either of these however, they would most likely be a lot more clumsy on land and would not be able to come out and graze on the grasses that they need.

Then how do they get around in the water you may be thinking. It comes down to balancing their buoyancy. Hippos, like elephants, have extremely dense bones and with these dense bones, it gives them enough weight to take them down to the bottom of their chosen water source. With light bones they would never be able to submerge properly and if bones were to dense, they would never be able to come back up for air. The amount of air they have in their lungs will also help with the buoyancy.

When they have mastered all of this, which doesn’t take long for the young, they can keep their feet at the bottom. They generally stick to the shallow waters where they can submerge, but are able to reach the surface easily for breathing. Here they walk around easily and will even sleep in the water. If they lay down to sleep, they will subconsciously come up to breathe in their sleep. This is usually when you just see their nostrils break the surface for a breath before disappearing again. They can hold their breathes for around seven minutes if need be, halving their heart rate when submerging to help with this.

In very deep water, they walk along the bottom, but are able to push themselves up to the surface to breathe. They can also hold themselves up on their back legs, which calves will do, or clamber up onto their mother’s backs to help. Watching all of this with underwater cameras, it all looks very graceful and happens in slow motion. You can even see the favored routes under water as underwater paths form where they move more regularly.

Next time you see a group of hippos together all staring at you with their heads out of the water, know that they are not swimming or floating, but are rather standing on their bottom.

Are these white lions albino?

We are very fortunate that one in some parts of the Greater Kruger National Park, there are a few white lions that are dotted through the area. Some people get confused by these white lions and one of the first questions we get when seeing them is, “are these white lions albinos?”.

The simple answer to this is no, these lions are not albino, but are rather leucistic. This leucistic gene that is carried by the white lions is genetic mutation that causes their fur to be much lighter, almost a pale blonde, almost white, making them much lighter than the other tawny cats. These lions have also got blue, green or lighter hazel colored eyes and will have the black nose and darker patches behind the ears and tail tuft. They also have the dark “eyeliner” around the eyes. If these cats were albinos, their noses, eyes and area around the eyes would all be pink.

For a white lions cub to be born, it is thought that both of the parents need to carry this recessive gene, even if both the adults are tawny. This is why they are so rare, rather to the belief that these white lions struggle. Individuals out here have proven that this is not the case, with males becoming dominant and running territories, to females having cubs and hunting successfully.

Can impalas hold their lambs back until the rains come?

This is a question that is asked by guests and young guides alike. There is an old folktale that says that impala females will hold their lambs back until the first rains, but this most certainly is not true and not the case. If females had to hold on to their lambs for too long, there would surely be complications at birth, putting both mother and lamb at risk.

Impalas, like many of our other antelope species, are synchronized breeders (remembering this is for Southern Africa, not East Africa). The rut itself happens through the month of May and so after their six and seven month gestation period, they then become synchronized birthers as well. This is a survival strategy, as come November – early December, the rains would have most likely come. This means plenty of good food for the females and also hiding places for the youngsters in their first few days of life. Youngsters that are born before the rain, may have a tougher time hiding and so can be picked out easier by predators.

What we have found though, is that the rain in a wet season, can determine the gestation of the impala. If we have a really good rain season and food is plentiful throughout the winter time, the fetus itself may develop a little faster than a fetus that grows during a poor winter period. This is the reason we say the gestation period is between 6 and 7 months as well. The huge explosion of lambs later on in the season is because that’s when most of the females would have been covered by the rams.

So there you have 3 commonly asked questions asked with one or to fairytales squashed at the same time. In the coming months we will do the same, getting at some more questions.