Meet Banana, Brookfield's Zoo New 2-Year-Old Pygmy Hippopotamus

BROOKFIELD, IL — Brookfield Zoo has welcomed a new top Banana to its rank of residents after a 2-year-old pygmy hippopotamus was added recently added to the zoo’s collection.

Banana, who will turn 3 in August, is becoming acclimated to her new surroundings and can be seen by zoo visitors either inside of Brookfield’s Pachyderm House or in her outside habitat, the zoo announced on Tuesday.

The zoo has a long history with hippopotamuses since it opened in 1934 and Brookfield’s most recent pygmy hippo was humanely euthanized in 2021 due to health issues associated with her age. She was 44, the zoo said.

The pygmy hippopotamus is much smaller and rarer than the common river hippopotamus, zoo officials said. The pygmy variety weighs between 350 and 600 pounds and can reach a body length of up to more than 5 ½ feet long.

Although they are adapted for spending time in the water, pygmy hippos are s less aquatic than their larger relative. Zoo officials said that hippos secrete a white or pinkish substance called “blood sweat” from their pores that provides a protective coat like sunscreen on their skin.

The pygmy hippo, whose closest living relative is the whale, is listed as endangered on the IUCN’s International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List of Threatened Species.

They are typically found in the interior forests of West Africa’s Ivory Coast, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the population is declining mainly due to deforestation of its habitat as well as an increase in development associated with mining, the zoo said.

In addition, due to the pygmy hippo’s range becoming more fragmented, experts say that hunters are posing an additional threat to the remaining population, which is estimated to be between 2,000 to 3,000 pygmy hippos.