The chosen animal is the hippopotamus, with its preferred habitat being the African waterways. Following elephants and rhinos in terms of size, hippopotamuses may reach up to three tons in weight, making them the third-largest terrestrial animal worldwide (Gorongosa, n.d.). Being amphibious, hippopotamuses reside most of their daytime resting and interacting in the water and most of the nighttime grazing grass on the ground (Gorongosa, n.d.). An adult hippopotamus may travel up to five kilometers or more in search of food, and the animals consume twenty to forty kilograms of grass per night (Gorongosa, n.d.). Regarding predators, newborn hippopotamuses are reported to be preyed upon by hyenas, river crocodiles, and lions (Burkepile & Thurber, 2019). Aside from this, mature hippopotamuses are not preyed on by other predators because of their size and ferocity.
In the environment of African waterways, hippos’ feces play a significant role. In case of their extinction, the savanna’s ecosystem can be disrupted. Even at this moment, the savanna’s environment is in peril since there are decreasing numbers of hippos. Long-term consequences might include food crises, such as those around African lakes since hippos consume silicon-containing grass, and silicon in hippos’ feces is essential for some microorganisms, including diatoms (Burkepile & Thurber, 2019). In most aquatic habitats, single-celled plankton exists in the water, creates oxygen, and serves as the foundation of the food supply chain (Burkepile & Thurber, 2019). In other terms, a shortage of silicon might cause the siliceous plankton species to disappear, which would be disastrous for the overall food chain in the body of water.
Throughout the last generation, hippos have been prevalent all over sub-Saharan Africa, however, today, they are only found in a few number of places. The main cause of their decreasing habitat has been a confrontation with people over water and land (Gorongosa, n.d.). Their reduction has also been attributed to poaching and vindictive slaughter in response to attacks on people or agricultural destruction (Gorongosa, n.d.). Waterways are deteriorating as a result of the reduction of hippos, which are essential to wetland ecosystems.
References
Burkepile, D. E., & Thurber, R. V. (2019). The long arm of species loss: How will defaunation disrupt ecosystems down to the microbial scale? BioScience, 69(6), 443-454.
Gorongosa. (n.d.). Hippos. Web.