Talk:Billy (pygmy hippo)

Extra sources

These sources were added but without content, so I'm not sure if they actually were used to cite anything in this article. I don't have access to the sources, but if they corroborate anything in the article, please let me know so we can add them back in. --JayHenry 01:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Stroman, H.R., & Slaughter, L.M., "The care and breeding of the pygmy hippopotamus Choeropsis liberiensis in captivity", National Zoological Park, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. 12, 1972
• Rahn, P., "On housing the Pygmy hippopotamus Choeropsis liberiensis in pairs: a survey of zoo practice" Zoologischer Garten Berlin, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. 18, 1978
• Leutenegger, Madeleine, "Pygmy hippopotamus Choeropsis liberiensis births in captivity", Basel Zoo, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. 18, 1978

The first article was the source of the information about two of the three female pygmy hippos at the National Zoo being Billy's daughters. The male which Eisenhower recieved was not sexually mature until 1962 according to that same article. It might be interesting to include Billy's studbook number. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk • contribs)

Oh great, thanks! I've always wanted to look at one of those studbooks, but unfortunately my library doesn't have any. I added that source back into the article. I think it'd be great to mention Billy's studbook number as that will make it easier for other serious zoological researchers to find information on him. --JayHenry 06:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I made these notes today at the Carleton University Library in Ottawa. Billy arrived at the zoo in June of 1927. Two years later the zoo acquired a female and in 1940 a second female, wild caught. I think you have this already I'll look again in a minute. The offspring of the first female produced over 24 years totalled 16 of which 6 survived to maturity. 6 of 8 of the second female surrvived to maturity. In 1972 9 of Billy's offspring were still living in zoos around the world. Billy died in 1955. This left the zoo with the 2nd. wild caught female acquired in 1940, and two of her female offspring named Susan and Millie. The 2nd male acquired in 1960 reached sexual maturity in 1962 and sired 19 calves by 1972, of which 12 were still living in 1972. By 1940 the zoo's knowledge of the care and breeding of pygmy hippos had improved so that the survival rate of the calves had increased. The two which did not survive to maturity, which were produced by the 2nd female, lived for a year. Between 1943 and 1972 43 pygmy hippos were born at the National Zoo. 21 were still living in 1972. A number of zoos and game farms sent female pygmy hippos to the National Zoo for breeding and all were successfully impregnated. A baby named Epsilon was born on 19, Feb., 1964, and she also gave birth at the National Zoo. They don't say who the father was, but I suspect it was her father. I was unable to get an e-mail address for the regional studbook keeper, to ask for Billy's number. I can phone the Toronto Zoo later and ask. They must have a copy of the studbook. In 1972 the National Zoo had four pygmy hippos which had been born there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk) 15:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC) According to the ISIS there are 43 male, 84 female, 2 unknown, and four births within the last 12 months for Hexaprotodon liberiensis in zoos, and 31 males and 31 females, 0 unknown, 3 born in the last 12 months for Hexaprotodon liberiensis liberiensis. There's also a "Group" of 2 in Paris Zoo. Maybe they mean hybrids. They list all the zoos which have them and the numbers and genders at each zoo. Sincerely Paul. PS Did they change the genus name? Did you know that the hippo is the whale's closest living relative? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk) 16:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC) I was trying to find the name of the pygmy hippo EEP coordinator (I suspect the person is at Bristol Zoo) and I found this: Gippoliti, Spartaco & Leoni, Alfiero "The Pygmy Hippopotamus At Rome Zoo", International Zoo News Vol. 46/6 (No. 295) Sept. 1999 www.zoonews.ws/IZN/295/IZN-295.html - 191k - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk) 16:43, 7 November 2007 (UTC) I don't believe that Billy died in 1956. He died on October 11, 1955. Lee S. Crandall, of the Bronx Zoo, wrote this in his book: "Management of Wild Mammals In Captivity", The University of Chicago Press, 1964,: "Following our loss of our last representative of the original importation, we were not long without pygmy hippopotamuses, for a young pair bred at the National Zoological Park was obtained from the Catskill Game Farm on Oct. 13, 1953. The Washington stock was based on a male acquired in 1927, and a female recieved in 1929, reinforced by a female brought from Liberia in 1940 by the Smithsonian-Firestone Expedition, headed by William M. Mann. A brief history of the animals, together with their remarkable breeding record, is given by Reed (1960). From 1931 to 1954 the first two animals, known as "Billy" and "Hannah", produced 15 calves, of which 7 were reared or at least lived more than one year. During the later years Billy was also paired with the 1940 female, "Matilda", who gave birth to 8 young between 1943 and 1956, six being reared. These twenty three births were distributed as follows,: January, one; February, three; March, three; April, three; May, two; June, three; July, one; August, two; October, two; December, three; Billy died on Oct. 11, 1955, and Hanna on March 6, 1958, each after approximately 28 years. Matilda and two of her daughters were still living in Washington at the time of Dr. Reed's report. The pair recieved here on Oct. 13, 1953 were the offspring of Billy and Hannah, the male having been born on June 13, 1951, the female on March 12, 1950. Although only two and three years old when they arrived, they refused to live together and were assigned to separate but adjoining quarters." A grandchild of Billy's was born at the Bronx Zoo on March 15, 1960. Two more were born by 1964. By the way William Mann was an entomologist. Ants were his specialty. I phoned the Omaha Zoo yesterday to ask for Billy's studbook number(s). He may have different numbers in the international and regional studbooks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk) 15:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's great information, I added the date of death and the number of children. I didn't give the month-by-month break down as I figure that's probably more information than most people are interested in! I saw you asked above about changing the genus name. Here's the story: pygmy hippos were actually first classified as Hippopotamus minor, but it was quickly realized that they were quite distinct, and they were given the name Choeropsis liberiensis by Samuel G. Morton. In 1977, Shirley (S.C.) Coryndon, who studied hippos extensively recognized a lot of similarities between the pygmy hippo and the fossil Hexaprotodon. She renamed the Pygmy Hippopotamus Hexaprotodon liberiensis and for the most part this became accepted. Then , in 2005 Jean-Renaud Boisserie, a paleontologist at Berkeley, did an extremely detailed review of fossil hippos using some techniques that weren't available in 1977 and concluded that the pygmy hippopotamus was actually different from the Hexaprotodonts of Asia. He returned the Pygmy Hippo to its previous name Choeropsis liberiensis. This only happened two years ago. I haven't seen it challenged anywhere, but it hasn't been around long enough to return to widespread usage. Some of the more recent papers I've read have a footnote saying that "in 2005 Boisserie proposed returning the pygmy hippopotamus to Choeropsis" but haven't passed judgment one way or the other yet. The two relevant papers are below if you are curious! Thanks again for your help with this research! --JayHenry 16:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Coryndon, S.C. (1977) "The taxonomy and nomenclature of the Hippopotamidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) and a description of two new fossil species". Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen 80 (2): 61-88.
• Boisserie, Jean-Renaud (2005). "The phylogeny and taxonomy of Hippopotamidae (Mammalia: Artiodactyla): a review based on morphology and cladistic analysis". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 143: 1-26.

Thanks for the message. I agree it would be too much information for the article, but I thought you might find it interesting so I put it in the discussion section. Besides I did'nt want to start rewriting the article. The pygmy hippo studbook keeper at Omaha Zoo sent me an e-mail. Billy's studbook number is 26. His offspring were sent to Dallas, Fort Worth, Busch Gardens in Tampa, Sydney, Ferndale (this is the International Animal Exchange in Ferndale, Michigan, but the animals don't actually go there they could be sent anywhere), Caversham (this is a zoo in Perth, Australia), Catskills, Havana, and Hanover. Did you ever see the pygmy hippo on "King Of The Hill", which was at a fair in Texas? Billy's studbook number might be worth adding to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk) 15:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Billy's offspring

Billy and Hannah: 1. August 26, 1931, male, died August 27, 1931, killed by mother. 2. August 21, 1932, male died August 22, 1932, killed by mother. 3. April 29, 1933, male, died April 29, 1933, killed by mother. 4. May 8, 1938, female, sent to Cole Bros. Circus April 26, 1939. 5. June 24, 1939, female, prematurely born, died June 25, 1939. 6. February 25, 1940, female, died October 28, 1942. 7. May 9, 1941, female, sent to Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, March 16, 1944. 8. February 1, 1943, female, died February 2, 1943. 9. February 20, 1945, male, sent to Miller Bros. Circus, Jan. 7, 1950. 10. December 21, 1945, female, died Dec. 21, 1945. 11. October 11, 1947, female, died Feb. 11, 1948. 12. March 12, 1950, female, sent to Catskill Game Farm, June 16, 1953. 13. June 13, 1951, male, sent to Catskill Game Farm, June 16, 1953. 14. April 26, 1953, female, died Nov. 8, 1953. 15. June 8, 1954, female, died June 23, 1955. Billy and Matilda: 1. Dec. 13, 1943, male, sent to Fort Worth Zoo. 2. March 15, 1947, female, living at NZP. 3. July 3, 1948, female, living at NZP. 4. Dec. 20, 1949, female, sent to Sydney, Australia, Oct. 18, 1954. 5. April 24, 1952, male, died Oct. 8, 1952. 6. Oct. 2, 1953, female, died Sept. 16, 1954. 7. January 30, 1955, female, sent to John Seago, England, Sept. 7, 1956. 7. March 29, 1956, female, sent to L. Ruhe, New York, May 7, 1957. Matilda and two of her daughters are still living in the National Zoological Park. Billy died on October 11, 1955, and Hannah on March 6, 1958. From Annual Report on The National Zoological Park, Washington, 1959. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk) 16:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, what a find! By the way: if you're interested in other zoo hippos, Wikipedia has articles on Obaysch and Huberta the hippopotamus. And as you mentioned Sumatran rhinos... you don't happen to have photos that you took yourself of any of those Sumatran rhinos do you? --JayHenry (talk) 07:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Note to GA reviewer

This article is on the short side, but I think that's appropriate for an article about a famous zoo animal. As you can hopefully see from the above sections, we've done a pretty thorough job researching. Because of the time period, there are no public domain pictures of Billy that I know of, although all pygmy hippos look more or less alike. --JayHenry (talk) 20:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Neither of these things concern me in the least. GA-class was meant for articles too short to ever be FA, and it's about broadness, not mere length. Also, lack of an image is completely understandable considering the subject matter. I'll post a full review shortly. VanTucky 20:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of April 27, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Very well-written for the most part, but I have a coupe questions/comments. First, are the commas a part of the direct quotes in Parenting troubles and Life as a stud? If not, they should go outside the quotation marks. Second, and more importantly, the first sentence of the article is interesting, but it doesn't state the obvious very well, at least to a first time reader like myself. Rather than jumping immediately in to edification on the subject , it's really important to define the article's subject point blank for the reader. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a hack at this myself. Unusual is pretty subjective anyway, who's to say a hippo is more unusual than lion cubs or Lincoln's goats? There were a lot of weird presidential pets, by today's standards. Other than that, it's a great read and in compliance with the Manual of Style.

2. Factually accurate?: Almost perfectly cited. I would, however, like to see the sentence, "Coolidge sent the second largest collection of animals of any president after Roosevelt to the zoo..." cited directly if possible. It's a pretty big claim.

3. Broad in coverage?: Certainly broad enough, especially considering the rather obscure subject matter.

4. Neutral point of view?: Gives fair representation to all significant points of view.

5. Article stability? Obviously stable, no edit wars etc.

6. Images?: All images that are present have proper source and licensing information.

For readability, please place any comments or questions pertaining to the hold below rather than within the body of the review. Thank you!

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. VanTucky 21:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to take a stab at that first sentence. I was trying to avoid saying "Billy the pygmy hippo is a pygmy hippo who" and got stumped. I agree that it's awkward as written, and we can't start with an awkward sentence. I also agree that "unusual" is potentially problematic. I fixed the commas. I always forget about that rule on Wikipedia. Also clarified that sourcing about Roosevelt/Coolidge. Thanks, VT! --JayHenry (talk) 02:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Let me know what you think about the new first sentence, and thanks very much for the timely work on my other requests, I really appreciate it. VanTucky 03:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that works perfect! (Not sure why I never though to just put the pygmy hippo part later in the sentence... oops!) --JayHenry (talk) 03:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Great! I'm promoting the article to GA-class now. Thanks for all your hard work, and congrats! VanTucky 03:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind if I changed the topic from natural sciences to history (either the Historical figures - other section or Americas)? All the animal articles in the organisms section are species articles, not individual animals so far as I can tell. VanTucky 03:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That's fine with me. I had no idea where to place it. I saw that while Knut (polar bear) was a GA he was placed under a header by himself called something like "Famous organisms", but I think history is probably better. Maybe someday there will be enough for their own category (e.g. Jumbo, Clara, Cheeta, Koko, Obaysch, Abada, Leo the Lion, etc.) --JayHenry (talk) 03:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I chose Historical figures - other. Let's fight the good fight against species-ism, animals are people too ;) VanTucky 04:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

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