Owen & Mzee

Nope, this isn't Brokeback Animal Planet. It's a tale of a friendship between two animals - a hippo and a tortise. I remembered that I first came across their story from a national geographic magazine onboard an SQ flight in early 2005. It's nice to know that they are still the best of friends today.

Owen, the one year old baby hippo, was separated from his mother during the Tsunami in December 2004. He was rescued and placed together with a 100 + years old tortise, Mzee ("old man") in a wildlife preserve. The wildlife rangers believed that Owen was initially attracted to Mzee because the tortise is of a similar color as that of an adult hippo. But the amazing fact was that Mzee was gradually got used to the presence of Owen. Since then they have became inseparable pals in their daily activities and even developed a unique way of communicating with each other. Owen's keepers are now trying to introduce Cleo, a female hippo, to be his girlfriend.

Owen and Mzee's keeper has a blog