Dita With Baby

A stork dropped off a new baby hippo on May 18th for momma Dita at the Bali Safari & Marine Park in Bali. Father Doni was seen handing out cigars to the orangutans in the cage nearby. Twelve-year-old Dita was brought to the park from Taman Safari Indonesia in 2007 and spends her time in Lake Manyara where she is very close to a fish named Cypress. Cypress was the only witness to the underwater birth and has reported that the new baby is a male. Dita and Doni are still trying to pick out a name for their new baby and are dickering over whether to hyphenate their last name.

The Human In Charge, Wayan Surata, reported that Dita stopped eating and stayed in the water for a much longer time than normal which he astutely took to be an indication that she was close to giving birth. However, he did not assist during Dita’s labor or delivery but was seen in the waiting room reading a copy of People Magazine. When Dita learned of this, she rolled her eyes and made a rude comment under her breath about males and childbirth and then chomped her teeth very loudly.

Dita With Baby

Wayan later told reporters that Dita is very protective of the newborn and proudly showed off his missing finger, lost when trying to weigh the baby. Further efforts to weigh the baby were unsuccessful until Cypress came forth with an estimate of 40 kilograms. She was unable to convert that to pounds for our American and English readers.

Hippo Mojo would like to congratulate Dita and will be sending her a case of Hershey’s chocolate bars and a boppy pillow for those long nursing sessions. Hey, it worked for us!