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its flicking tongue, as it would do before any meal. But not only did the snake not attack and eat the hamster, it appeared to the keeper that the two natural enemies began showing affection for one another. Soon Gohan was climbing up and over the snake’s body and fidgeting among the coils as if making a bed there. Then it settled in the snake’s embrace, and Aochan even adjusted its body to accommodate the little creature. “I sensed that the relationship wasn’t about eating, but was about friendship,” the keeper said in the interview. The animals remained together without incident.

It’s a lovely idea, that a snake known for its quick strike and power to suffocate warm-blooded animals could be a comfort to a nervous rodent. Of course, there are more likely explanations. Rat snakes will hibernate during cold weather, with a drop in metabolism to conserve energy, and the hamster–snake incident took place in autumn. So it’s likely that Aochan simply wasn’t hungry, his predatory drive in low gear. A summertime introduction to Gohan might have ended very differently indeed.

Regardless of the reason for the animals’ peaceful interaction, the behaviors were intriguing, and drew many visitors to the zoo to see a snake and a rodent in an unexpected embrace.

{KENYA, 2005}

The Tortoise and the Hippo

GIANT TORTOISE

KINGDOM: Animalia

PHYLUM: Chordata

CLASS: Sauropsida

ORDER: Testudines

FAMILY: Testudinidae

GENUS: Aldabrachelys

SPECIE: A. gigantea

HIPPO

The hippo’s yawn is not a sign of tiredness but a show of power. It’s used to threaten predators by showing off the animal’s rather colossal teeth.

It has fast become one the most famous examples of interspecies friendship ever told. Reptiles aren’t typically known for their warm, fuzzy natures. Nor are hippos.

The story goes that when the deadly December 2004 tsunami hit the Kenyan coast near the village of Malindi, the waves swept away all but one hippo of a pod wallowing in the Sabaki River. This lone survivor was a 600-pound baby that villagers managed, with colossal effort, to capture and transport to the Haller Park Wildlife Sanctuary in Mombasa.

Hippos can be aggressive and ill-tempered, even toward their own kind. So baby Owen, named after one of his human rescuers, was placed in an enclosure along with small, gentle animals like vervet monkeys, bushbucks, and, as it happened, a 130-year-old Aldabra giant tortoise named Mzee.

That’s when strange and wonderful things started to happen. Owen immediately approached Mzee and crouched down behind him as if hiding behind a great boulder. Mzee moved away, seeming annoyed, but the hippo persisted. And by the next morning, the two had managed a sort of awkward cuddle. Hippos in the wild crowd near each other, but except for mothers and young, they don’t really bond socially. Giant tortoises also hang out in herds without forming any great attachments. The young hippo, perhaps craving motherly attention, found something comforting in an old, set-in-his-ways reptile—a pairing as unlikely as they come.

Hippo babies usually stay with their mothers for four years, learning how to be hippos. In this case, Owen began learning how to be a tortoise. According to Haller Park’s manager, Paula Kahumbu, he began copying Mzee’s feeding behaviors, chewing on the same grasses. He’d ignore other hippos bellowing elsewhere in the park, and he was most active during the day, which is the opposite of typical hippo behavior but in line with tortoise preferences. The two followed each other around, wallowed together in the pond, and slept side by side, meaty torso against timeworn shell. Owen became protective of his reptile companion and affectionate toward him, licking Mzee’s face as the tortoise rested his head on Owen’s belly.

Scientists have been most fascinated with how the two animals developed their own physical and verbal language. With gentle nips and nudges to feet or tails, they told each other when to move and in which direction. They sounded off, back and forth, with deep rumbling sounds not typical of