A baby hippopotamus that survived the December 26, 2004 tsumani waves on the Kenyan coast formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombasa, according to officials there. The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsumani waves struck the Kenyan coast, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

“It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’,” ecologist Paul Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told reporters.

“After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added.

“The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it would follow its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.

“The hippo is a young baby. He was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,” he explained.