Eat your heart out, Moo Deng: the Toronto Zoo welcomed its own baby hippo last week, and she’s already showing signs of internet stardom in her future.

The internet has been obsessed with pygmy hippo calves in recent years, and we have Moo Deng, from Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo, to thank for that. Born in the summer of 2024, the adorable baby hippopotamus ascended to immediate stardom thanks to her pudgy build and boundless sass.

Later, riding Moo Deng’s coattails, Haggis (and later, Piper) at the Edinburgh Zoo, Jellybean at Arizona’s Wildlife World Zoo and Bröchten at Zoo Berlin have all had brushes with fame.

As of this summer, the Toronto Zoo has its very own pygmy hippo calf to thank for future viral moments and, call me biased, but she might be the bestest little blob yet.

On Aug. 5, the zoo announced that its 20-year-old pygmy hippo, Kindia, had given birth to a female calf days earlier on Aug. 2, the pygmy hippo’s third calf to be born at the zoo.

Currently unnamed, the zoo staff have taken to referring to the calf as “Tiny Tank,” a fitting name for a creature born weighing around 10 lbs and capable of growing to sizes ranging from 350 to 600 lbs.

Though Tiny Tank isn’t currently viewable to the public, she has already earned herself a solid share of the spotlight on the Toronto Zoo’s social media, the subject of memes (“Mooove over Moo Deng” is a personal favourite) and videos that show off what seems to be a particularly sassy personality.

One video shows Tiny Tank’s meagre attempts at “attacking” her mother, toothless mouth agape as she tries to pounce at Kindia’s leg, slipping and splaying out on the floor in the process.

“She’s a spicy potato,” one person comments on the video.

“Attack 100% damage 0%” writes another.

Despite all the love they get online, pygmy hippos are listed as an endangered species, with only an estimated 2000 to 3000 believed to live in the wild, so just as much as Tiny Tank’s arrival has blessed our collective feeds, she’s also playing an important role in continuing the survival of the species.

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Phoebe Knight, blogTO

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