Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 17, 2021

Just stomp on him when he comes to the door.

Pippo Hyppo?

It’s a hungry, hungry hippo! :-)

Hippos kill more humans than any other animal in Africa. A bad temper, not great eyesight, and water shared with humans. Not a good situation.

The animal that causes the most human deaths in the world is the mosquito.

Lions and tigers may be dangerous, but cheetahs never prosper.

Hope she’s not hungry hungry…

Zeeba should know that fact…

A 2 ton pig.

The hippo needs a red tie, no respect, no respect at all I tell you.

True statement. We learned from our safari guide in Tanzania that the hippo was the most dangerous animal.

Hippos are okay, as long as you don’t mention their we—-, er, problem.

Heh, heh, no one ever suspects the Hippo.

He’s pretty well feared in Africa, and rightly so.

Rodney Dangerfield ??? He got some weight ..

I would have thought the deadliest animal was homo sapiens…

Humans are the most dangerous of any animal in Africa. And tigers don’t live there. (Or hardly anywhere, in the wild.)

That’s because even the cowardly Lion said he could thrash the Hippo from top to botomus!

Just out from the “Hippodrome” !

By all accounts the malarial mosquito is probably the biggest killer, including in Africa, but is often not treated as an “animal” in these lists.Also, well up on the score is the humble Marmot. A cute if large mountain rodent, an Asian species of Marmot has been blamed as the starting vector for the Bubonic Plague / Black Death which then spread west and wiped out a third of Europe’s population. The diseases were probably not so much carried by rats fleas as by human body fleas.

I thought them crocodiles was most dangerous to zeebas.

Bah, they’re not even a nuclear power.

Ever notice how the nostrils look like another pair of eyes?

Careful Pig. Don’t break a hip….Oh!

ZEEBA! He’s so cute. Henrietta Hippo is visiting …..where’s her TUTU? LOL!

I can’t think of anything to say. Have a great weekend!

It’s Unhappy Hippo.

Once in Africa I spotted a leopard. But then someone told me they came that way.

The spirit of Rodney Dangerfield in a hippo?

I actually think Hippos DO kill more humans than any other animal. They’re nasty.

Hippos actually are pretty fierce and dangerous.

He gets respect from pig…

Try Soupy Sales’ door.

There aren’t any tigers in Africa

No tigers in Africa.

Zeeba and Pig, such a nice change!

Uh not even close, homo sapien.

And I always thought that a mosquito was an insect, not an animal.

Rodney Danger-Hippo?

If the hippo manages to not crush you to death then you have to be careful not to stand too close behind (check out hippo projectile pooping)

Big, fat, bad tempered, bad eyesight, dangerous, craps on my lawn sound like my neighbors dog.

Gratuitous etymology corner: “Hippopotamus” is from the Greek “híppos” (horse) and “potamós” (river), thus river horse. In English, the plural is “hippopotamuses”, but “hippopotami” is also used, apparently in the fallacious belief that the “us” ending is both (a) faithfully reproduced from the original source and (b) from Latin.

Hopefully, he isn’t a hungry, hungry hippo. Stay safe and well.

It IS worth pointing out that hippos are – if not the only, then one of the very few – animals that will attack and kill humans (and other animals) just for the entertainment value. Apparently wallowing in filth and beating the snot out of each other all day eventually gets dull and they need to spice things up once in a while. Grabbing some hapless hairless ape and mauling it, bashing it, or simply holding it underwater until it drowns qualifies as Great Hippo Fun.

bring back DDT

Rather than just claim that humans are more deadly in Africa than mosquitoes, let’s look at some actual numbers. Here’s what I found about mosquitoes as of 2020 Nov. 19 in Reuters:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-malaria-who/malaria-death-toll-to-exceed-covid-19s-in-sub-saharan-africa-who-idUSKBN28A009

 More than 409,000 people globally – most of them babies in the poorest parts of Africa – were killed by malaria last year 2019, the WHO said in its latest global malaria report, and COVID-19 will almost certainly make that toll higher in 2020.

 “Our estimates are that depending on the level of service disruption (due to COVID-19) … there could be an excess of malaria deaths of somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them in young children,” Pedro Alsonso, director of the WHO’s malaria programme, told reporters.

OK, folks who think humans are deadlier, your turn to produce some numbers.

Man?

I’m calling it there is going to be an ark on this.

He called that right as to the deadliest animal but there is also an altruistic side to them. There’s a a Utube video showing one helping a struggling wildebeest crossing a river……

I’m thinking the deadliest animal in Africa goes about on two legs. It is an invasive species, having spread to every continent, INCLUDING Antarctica.

“Whoever says that size doesn’t matter, has never spent the night with a mosquito”

That hippo’s right, nobody respects them just because they’re dangerous.

He forgot bears!

Mosquito’s not an animal. In Africa it’s the hippo.

I’ve heard hippos can be dangerous.But they look cute,and they’re so fat you figure you can outrun them.

We’ve got room….for him in our garage…

We’ll feed him there and wash him there….and give him his massage.

Is that Officer Potus, in the nude?

He wants to know if anyone wants to go on a boat ride?

That mosquito must have a thyroid problem…

He’s a hungry hungry hippo!

Zebra, as an African animal yourself, you should know that there are NO TIGERS in Africa!!!

A tiger? In Africa? (Cue John Philip Sousa’s “The Liberty Bell”)

Well, you do look kind of funny out of the water.

No tigers in Africa. Also, water buffalos are pretty dangerous too.

Notice that Zeeba is so unafraid of the crocs he didn’t ask if they were at the door lol

Nah…a skeeter would take the sting out of this joke! :D

One hippopotami can’t get on a bus,

Because one hippopotami is two hippopotamus!

Joey, have you ever seen a hippo bite a man in half? Anyway, if one gets into your pool be sure to stay away.

It’s true. The deadliest warm blooded one for sure. They’re highly territorial and unforgiving.

If Stephan had said “land mammal,” then hippo gets respect.

Just throw out some chocolate bars. Hippos love chocolate (so says Jomo anyway)

Not directly.

Mom says a hippo….would eat me up,but then……

My teacher says a hippo is a vegetarian!

…all those fat jokes…

When we lived in Bujumbura in the early 1980s, some Russians were having a beach party on Lake Tanganyika. One of them got drunk (actually they all did) and he thought that it would be a cute picture on him riding on the back of a baby hippo. He did not survive it’s mamma’s wrath.

Hippos do kill more people each year than Crocodiles

I thought that was supposed to be the Cape Water Buffalo.

BTW, Zeeba Neighba, though you’ve probably been too busy escaping death to notice, there are no indigenous tigers in Africa….

Don’t think a hippos are dangerous? Consider how big their mouths are.

Stephan, you should’ve drew a red Tie on the Hippo, because I can hear him sounding like Rodney Dangerfield with that line.

Notice that Crocs aren’t even on Zebra’s list. Burn!

No one remembers hyenas

I mean, Ed from EEnE is just a humanized version of Ed from TLK