A Facebook post shared yesterday (29 October) by Rapid KL shows a series of photos with the cute baby hippopotamus Moo Deng superimposed in them.
In the collection of humorous photos, Moo Deng is seen frustrated by inconsiderate train passengers who cut queue, eat in the train, place their bag on a vacant seat, and don’t wear deodorant.
The last photo is of Moo Deng leaving a friendly message to the public to be considerate to others when using public transport.
Who is Moo Deng and why is the internet crazy over her?
Moo Deng, whose name translates to “bouncy pork” because of her pudgy form, is a baby pygmy hippo from Thailand who is under the care of the Khao Keow Open Zoo in Chonburi.
Born on July 10, 2024 at the zoo, she became an internet sensation a month later after zookeeper Atthapon Nundee posted videos of her bathing, playfully biting, and sleeping.
Moo even has her own 24/7 livestream as people just can’t get enough of her, and because she’s so popular, the zoo was reported to have gained a boost in visitors recently.
Today, Moo is the subject of countless memes such as these:
Sadly for Moo, she is a member of a vulnerable and elusive species of pygmy hippos (Choeropsis liberiensis), which are native to West Africa.
While she becomes increasingly popular, her relatives in the wild are becoming increasingly rare as their natural habitat shrinks due to large areas of land being razed to establish commercial plantations of oil palm, cocoa, and rubber.
Pygmy hippos are the world’s smallest species of hippo and are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List.