PARIS — Aldo looks, eats and lazes like a hippopotamus — but he's only about as big as a human baby, at 21 inches.
The pygmy hippo, born this month at the Paris Zoo, is one of only a few dozen in Europe, bred in a special program to boost the rare species.
There are no more than 3,000 around the world, mostly concentrated in west African countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau or Liberia, said Juliane Villenain, a biologist at the zoo in the Bois de Vincennes, a park on Paris' eastern edge.
"Not that they are particularly attractive animals when full grown," Dr. Villenain said as he presented this photograph of an adult animal, "but all babies are beautiful and we should cherish Aldo for the pretty infant he is rather than think about the foul smelling, ugly beast he'll become."
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