No idiots! How hippos “fly” through the air at speeds of 29 km/h despite their not-so-graceful bodies

By any measure, hippos are not the most graceful creatures.

But they can be deceptively light on their feet and, at their fastest, are able to move with all four hooves in the air as they run, research reveals.

Scientists were surprised by the results, as hippos spend much of their time in the water, while equally heavy mammals, such as elephants, are unable to gallop.

Even running as fast as they can, elephants always have at least one paw on the ground at all times.

But hippos, which can reach top speeds of 18 mph, actually “fly” for 15 percent of the time they trot on land.

The new discovery was made by Professor John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College and researcher Emily Pringle.

They collected images of hippos from Flamingo Land in Yorkshire and analysed footage of the animals running taken from the internet.

In total, the researchers analyzed 169 locomotion cycles from 32 individual hippos.

Analysis of video footage revealed for the first time that the fastest-moving hippos stay airborne, sometimes for considerable periods: about 15 percent of the stride cycle, or 0.3 seconds.

Professor Hutchinson said: “Our study was as simple as biomechanical research can be. Anyone can take a camera or videos from the internet and learn something about how animals move from those images.”

‘Hippos are difficult to work with as they tend to stay in the water and are rarely trained to be studied in zoo collections.

“They are also very dangerous. That’s one of the reasons why science knew little about how hippos move before our research.

“We are delighted to offer the first study focused exclusively on revealing how hippos walk and run. We were pleasantly surprised to see how hippos soar through the air when moving quickly. It’s truly impressive!”