High stakes and aggression as hippo bulls face off in intense conflict

The video shows two very aggressive hippo bulls, locked in a territorial battle, with each male’s territory and females at stake.
While not part of Africa’s big five animal group, the hippo is one of the most dangerous animals in the animal kingdom and kills more humans in Africa every year than any other animal. Hippo bulls are extremely territorial when they claim a certain piece of water for them and their females. When other equally sized bulls enter the arena and are not submissive, all hell breaks loose. The video was filmed in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana and shows such a rarely seen battle and it was intense. With their sharp upper and lower tusks located in the mouth, hippos use them as their weapons of attack. Biting your opponent and inflicting wounds is the main goal of the winner in the end. Together with the aggressive fighting, there are the sounds of these massive beasts that sound like something form a horror movie. Their deep and scary sounding roars and groans echoed through the valley. Eventually one hippo bull got in a few bites and the one on the receiving end decided it was better to make a run for it. The hippo came bursting out the water onto land, with the dominant male setting after. It was incredible to see how fast these animals were running on land. After a bit of land sprinting, the hippo decided it was best to get back into the water and headed straight for the whole family of hippos that was looking on all along. The dominant hippo still chased after the intruder until he went straight into the middle of the rest of the hippos. It was weird to see then how suddenly everything calmed down as if nothing happened. What an incredible safari moment that was indeed and not something you get to see every day out in the African wild.