What Is Hippo Leather?
Common Hippo
Hippo Leather is that from a hippopotamus, the skin of a Hippo is very thick. It’s around 6cm thick, that’s 2 inches, that’s some thickness for an animal skin.
The skins very distinctive a bit like dried up mud that’s all cracking in a water hole, all crazed like the surface is dried up.
Hippos sustain a great of injury during a lifetime from attacks and insects biting the animal’s skin.
Hippo leather is very rare. There are two types of hippos, the common hippo and the pygmy hippo and they are an endangered species.
It’s estimated there are around 135,000 Hippos in the world, they are native to Africa. The common hippo is found in rivers in places like East Africa and the small pygmy hippo is found in West Africa mainly in forest areas and is very endangered.
The pygmy hippo is around half as tall as the common hippo and it weighs less than a quarter of the common hippo. Common hippos have a life span of around 45 years and can weigh up to 4,500kg, that’s 4.5 tonnes, the average weight of a car is only 2.8 tonnes so you can imagine with this beast running at you it’s going to cause some damage.
Pygmy Hippo
Hippo leather is very similar to that of elephants but is tanned to a very soft finish mainly being a nubuck finish. Hippo leather is very durable and strong and becomes softer with age if it’s cared for correctly.
Hippos may look like this big lump that can’t move and have an innocent look to them, but beware they kill more humans than most other animals in the wild and boy can they run. They’ve been tracked at doing up to 25 mph you will never out run them, imagine a herd of these coming at you !!