About six times lighter than the common hippo, the pygmy hippopotamus comes out at night, lives alone, and is much shyer than its big cousin. Its eyes and nostrils stick out less, because it spends more time on land than in water. Its skin gives off a pink liquid that works as a natural sunscreen and germ killer. It eats plants: ferns, leafy plants and fallen fruit. Only about 2,000 to 2,500 are thought to live in the wild, in the forests of West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast), where they are threatened by deforestation and civil wars.