Moo Deng is a pygmy hippopotamus born in the Khao Kheow Zoo in Thailand on July 10, 2024. Her name translates to bouncy pig or bouncy pork and was bestowed by an internet poll. It's not hard to understand the choice as Moo Deng is very frisky, energetic, and frolicsome. She runs in circles, gets in fights with thin air, and goes from hyperactive freakout to nap time in fractions of a second. She also likes to gum her zoo keepers fairly aggressively which is cute at only forty pounds. Hopefully she'll grow out of that.
Pygmy hippos are not know for their capering at any age so Moo Deng's antics took social media by storm in September 2024. Cute animals are one of the cornerstones of the internet alongside pornography, self-congratulatory circle jerks, and incomprehensibly stupid and ignorant comment sections. As the only one that everyone feels good about it's important to keep the cute, funny, wholesome animal content coming and Moo Deng is a rich vein for this. While it's impossible to analytically comprehend the appeal of adorable creatures I suspect that a major element of her sudden fame is that she's a study in contrast. Moo Deng is a chubby and uncoordinated ball of lard which should really be quite sedate. Her species are semi-aquatic herbivores with a lot of mass atop relatively skinny legs. Moo Deng ignores these limitations. Sometimes she has the zoomies like a cat that ate a crack rock and is now trying to invent Kung Fu from first principles. Combined with her habit of biting at everything, chewing nonexistent food, waking up from naps with what looks like conniptions, and dropping into sleep just as suddenly and one has to wonder if she has a condition. An extremely brief and shallow search for other baby pygmy hippos indicates that these qualities are indeed unique to her. If you want to watch the live stream of her enclosure it's available here.
IRON NODER XVII: ALL'S FERROUS IN LOVE AND NODING