However, this has since been shown to be false. A hippo s nostrils, eyes, and ears are located on the top of their heads so that upon submersion these organs can remain above the water 7 . The river hippopotamus spends a majority of its time during the day in the water, and emerges in the evening for terrestrial foraging. Also, they eat aquatic plants, which they obtain by diving and swimming. This has led to them being blamed for crop damage in regions such as the Elephant Marsh in Africa 5 .
Hippos are strictly unselective grazers.
Their blunt teeth, flat snout and wide straight lips enable them to graze close to the soil surfaces, which means besides eating grass, roots and fruit they digest a quantity of soil 4 . Hippos do not ruminate, which means that they do not chew their cud. They have three chambered stomachs consisting of the parietal blind sac, the stomach, and the glandular stomach 4 . Their stomachs are designed to efficiently derive nutrition from the lower-energy foods off which they exist. Within the complex structure of the hippo s stomach microbial fermentation takes place, which is followed by catalytic digestion in the small and large intestine which are of similar size and structure.