A hippopotamus in Japan that was thought for seven years to be a he is actually a she, the wallowing giant lives in Tokyo, according to a statement released on Tuesday ( Apr 23 ).
The 12-year-old visited the Osaka Tennoji Zoo in 2017 from Mexico’s Africam Safari pet park, where authorities attested on customs records that the then-five-year-old was a male.
However, zookeepers had longer scratched their heads, a spokesperson told AFP.
In particular, Gen-chan did not display the common male elephant attitude of splattering faeces around while defecating – with a propeller-like head movement – in order to indicate territory.
It was a dangerous job in such a huge and possibly hostile creature because it made romance calls to females and zookeepers were unable to visually determine any female genitalia.
The park said in a statement posted last week that” we requested a DNA test at an external entity, and the outcome showed it was feminine.”
” We will keep doing our best to provide ( a ) comfortable environment to Gen-chan, so everyone, please come and see,” it said.