What animal sweats acidic blood?

The most ferocious animal in Africa isn’t the proud lion or the crafty hyena. It’s actually the hippopotamus! Hippos are mostly plant-eaters, but they are also fiercely aggressive, and their mouths contain a terrifying set of teeth that they use with deadly force. No one is really sure how strong male hippos’ bites are, because nobody’s been able to get close enough to tell!

Though their closest living relatives are whales and dolphins, adult hippos can’t actually swim. They’re so dense that they sink to the bottom, and move along by leaping across the bottom of river beds. This doesn’t prevent them from spending most of their lives in the water though; the only time they actually leave is to go forage for grass at night.

One of the strangest facts about a hippo is that they appear to sweat blood! It was difficult to check because it’s dangerous to get close enough to a hippo to find out, but scientists eventually discovered that the dark red substance hippos produce isn’t blood or sweat at all, but a natural antibacterial sunscreen! It’s red when it comes out of the hippo’s skin, but quickly changes to orange and then brown as it dries. It’s acidic, which stops bacteria from growing on the hippo’s skin, and it also stops the sun’s harmful rays from reaching the hippo’s skin.

Now that would be a handy abitily to have on a summer’s day!