Visitors were transfixed as Mabel, the pygmy hippo took a swim at the Henry Doorly Zoo Tuesday.
"They were entranced. They just couldn't leave watching her swim by, waiting for her to swim by," Amanda Neilsen said about her kids Owen, 5 and Adelyn, 2.
Mabel, the two month old, flopped a little on the rocks before a big dive in front of visitors. The baby got some swimming lessons before coming out Tuesday.
"The water is very deep. So we don't want to have a baby born on exhibit," said Christie Eddie, the zoo's curator of small mammals, "Hippo calves have to learn how to swim. They don't know how to swim when they are first born. We have to control our level since we don't have the river's edge. So we do the swim lessons in holding."
Mabel was born October first, weighing 19 pounds. Just a few months old, zoo staff says she's already weighing 76 pounds. When fully grown, Mabel will weigh between 350 and 600 pounds.
Mabel will spend her time between swims and resting on the rocks with her mother, Chomel, for the next year or so. Zoo staff says after a couple of years its rare to find mother and calf together in the wild. Pygmy hippos are reclusive, independent mammals. Mabel is one of 27 pygmies in U.S. zoos. They're considered endangered because of habitat destruction.
Want to know more about pygmy hippos? Read our 10 facts!
Mabel the pigmy hippo makes her debut at @OmahaZoo . #KMTV #hippo @action3news pic.twitter.com/VUeE1Qxz1X
— Lindsey Theis (@lindseytheis) December 22, 2015
