Hippopotamus Surprise egg" of the Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA. Hippopotamus The common hippopotamus ("Hippopotamus amphibius"), or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous, semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus ("Choeropsis liberiensis" or "Hexaprotodon liberiensis"). The name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (). After the elephant and rhinoceros, the common hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the Hippopotamidae are
Pygmy goose end of a tarsometatarsus. It is only record of the genus in the New World. The genus "Nettapus" was erected by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt in 1836. The word "Nettapus" is from the Ancient Greek "nētta" "duck" and "pous" "foot". It was thought that the type species, the African pygmy goose ("Nettapus auritus"), possessed the feet and body of a duck and the neck of a goose. There are three extant species in the genus: Pygmy geese have short bills, rounded heads and short legs. They nest in tree holes. Pygmy goose The pygmy geese are a