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full screen A male was actually a female – it was revealed during a DNA test on a hippopotamus in Japan. Archive image. Photo: Michael Sohn AP/TT
Unusual toilet habits and a DNA test revealed the gender of a hippo at a zoo in Japan.
For seven years it has been believed that the great beast, named Gen-chan, was a male, but in fact it turned out that the animal was a female.
The hippopotamus came to Osaka Tennoji Zoo in 2017 after spending his early years at the Africam Safari zoo in Mexico. At this time, it was documented that the then five-year-old was a male.
But zookeepers often felt confused when Gen-chan did not display the typically male behavior of spreading his feces using his tail in a propeller-like motion to mark territory.
It was considered too dangerous to visually try to find out the sex.
“Therefore, we requested a dna test from an outside institution, and the result showed that it was indeed a female,” Osaka Tennoji Zoo said in a statement.