posted April 29, 2008 02:09 PM         

Apparently they get upset if their paths get crossed ~ literally if if means someone interferes with their route between water and food. {Sounds like Taurus ~ or at least my Taurus Dad and his dinner or his pub session with his mates!} They are quite territorial and don't like it if their space gets messed with. So it makes sense that apparently they have killed more people in Africa than any other animal (!) even though they are vegetarian. More on that here:

http://www.hemmy.net/2007/06/12/angry-hippo-charges-gamekeeper/

Their nearest living relative? The whale! Now that was something I didn't know.

posted April 29, 2008 11:40 PM         

The earliest know fossils of their kind date back to about 16 million years ago, give or take.

It makes me wonder a bit...

posted May 02, 2008 01:20 PM         

The reason they are related is because they share common ancestry.

In the Cretaceous period, the earliest ancestors of whales were the Order Condylarthra, which were terrestrial mammals that colonized the edges of rivers that emptied into the southern and western Tethys Sea.

The Family Mesonchidae were terrestrial mammals with large bodies that fed on slow fish and mollusks, and then developed faster reflexes to capture faster, more agile fish.

Artiodactyla gave rise to ungulates (hooved mammals) and Suborder Archaeocetes evolved to have more aquatic features.

The most interesting one to me is Ambulocetes, which was known as the "walking whale" because he was both aquatic (shallow waters) and terrestrial.