If You Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas, Fiona Delivers

CINCINNATI, OH — Fiona the hippopotamus has found another way to waddle into our hearts. The celebrity hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo is celebrating the holidays in the latest episode of “The Fiona Show” as a voice from Christmases past serenades her.

You had to have seen this coming. The voice is that of Oklahoma City native Gayla Peevey, who was 10 when she sang the novelty hit “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” The song has enjoyed a resurgence, and Peevey helped the zoo in her native city welcome a 26-year-old female pygmy hippo to a habitat that her song helped fund.

Francesca is adorable, too, but hearts in Cincinnati and beyond belong to Fiona. She is often referred to as “the world’s most beloved hippopotamus,” and the young pachyderm has earned it.

She almost didn’t make it. She was born six weeks prematurely in January, weighing only 29 pounds when she entered the world — about half the previous record for the lowest birth weight of a member of her species, which is normally between 55 and 129 pounds, according to The Fiona Show Facebook page, where she makes semi-regular appearances.

When Fiona refused to nurse, she was hand-raised by humans, who instantly fell in love with her. So did the members of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s nationally renowned Vascular Access Team who rehydrated her in February when she became dehydrated, sick and lethargic. She convalesced in a human populated infirmary, but it was close enough that she could smell her parents, Bibi and Henry.

Fiona was famous before she was born, though. Bibi was the first hippopotamus to undergo an ultrasound — a difficult feat, given how notoriously difficult hippos are to train.

More Fiona Love

• Hippo Mom, Daughter Fiona Get Close Again
• Fiona Photobombs Couple’s Engagement
• Happy Fiona Frolics, Zoo Visitors Swoon

Have Some Francesca Love, Too

• Oklahoma Zoo Gets A Hippopotamus For Christmas

Fiona, a Nile hippopotamus, swims in her enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens. John Minchillo/AP