Fiona is turning one year old and, being America’s favorite hippo, she got a fittingly special birthday bash but imagine, what if Fiona was born in Africa where only the strong survive. Where hippos strive season after season, when water is plenty, muddy and sometimes scarce.
Fiona being a nile hippopotamus, nile hippos are known to have the tendency of biting at one another, bumping into others, causing a stir throughout the ranks. Slowly they resume their feeding and settle back down – only to have an attack break out minutes later in a different section of the pool.
Happy Birthday Fiona
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s most famous resident actually turns 1 on January 24, but fans gathered Saturday to celebrate the extraordinary hippo’s life
And like any birthday girl, Fiona got her own cake.
“The birthday girl even made a special appearance and enjoyed a hippo-friendly cake made by our zoo nutritionist!” the zoo wrote with an Instagram photo of Fiona on her big day.
It’s been an incredible year for Fiona. The miracle baby Nile hippo, whose birth made headlines when she was born six weeks premature, has become a phenomenon at the Cincinnati Zoo and across the world.
Well-wishers who showed up Saturday were treated to a special appearance by Fiona thanks to unseasonably warm weather that allowed her to go outside and be observed.
Visitors also got a hippo bath mat, a commemorative Fiona postcard with a stamp of her footprint, as well as ice cream and cake and cookies.
On January, 24 2017, Fiona was born weighing 29 pounds, or just half the normal birth weight of a hippo.
As Fiona defied the odds and grew strong, she quickly became an internet darling as fans found themselves unable to look away from the bouncing baby hippo who just seemed to adore the camera.
Today, Fiona weighs more than 650 pounds and could grow to by five times that size.
Every little new adventure for Fiona seemed to become a viral sensation as her keepers documented her remarkable growth.
Viewers couldn’t get enough of her first swims, bubble playtime, her naps, her photobomb and even her bodily functions.
By August, the hippo even started appearing in her own Facebook series, The Fiona Show.