Photographer Marc Mol was traveling through Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park when he captured these cute images of a newborn hippopotamus being scared by a swarm of birds landing on its back.
When woodpeckers paid a visit to one of the cubs, a Swiss photographer aimed his camera at them. “I was concentrated on a bloat of hippos when I noticed the infant running in terror with his pursuers on his back,” Mol explains.
When the hippopotamus began to cry, go to its mother, and writhe from side to side, attempting to shake off its predators, he began snapping images. “When I initially saw this hippo racing towards me and emerging from the water, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Then I discovered it was a little flock of woodpeckers,” the photographer explains.
“Watching it was a lot of fun.” Hippos and woodpeckers normally have a symbiotic connection in which the birds consume the hippopotamus’s ticks and other parasites. The hippopotamus is provided with free care, while the bird is provided with free food.
However, it appears that the baby hippopotamus, in this case, has not yet realized the full benefits of such a partnership.
“I couldn’t believe what I was able to capture in the shot,” Maul adds.
“I like this little guy’s expression as he desperately attempts to fend off what he thinks to be unpleasant bugs.”
