Meet Billy the Hippo: The Strangest Presidential Pet You’ve Never Heard Of

President Calvin Coolidge was known to have some unusual pets. In addition to cats, dogs, and birds, the Coolidge family had a raccoon named Rebecca (that was originally gifted to be a dish for Thanksgiving dinner), two lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, and a black bear from Mexico named Bruno.

One cute addition to the list of the Coolidge family pets was Billy, which was short for William Johnson Hippopotamus. But the pygmy hippopotamus didn't stay at the White House. Instead, he populated zoos across the country. 

Let’s learn more about Billy the Hippo and his legacy. 

Billy Arrives in America

In 1927, the Coolidge family received word that they would receive a new pet for their collection: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia on behalf of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. But how the company came to be in possession of such a pet wasn't exactly altruistic. After all, the pygmy hippo originally lived on land in Africa that had been destroyed by one of the tire company's rubber plantations.

He was welcomed by the presidential family, but never stayed at the White House, partially because he was six feet long and three feet tall when he arrived in the United States. Instead, the family sent him to the Rock Creek Zoo, now known as the National Zoo, which was also home to several other exotic animals.

Billy was a hit at the zoo and became popular with zoo visitors eager to see the unique animal. A piece in the New York Times described just how popular Billy was compared to the rest of the zoo animals. "Even the antics of the monkeys go unobserved when the keeper opens the tiny hippo's cage and cuts up with him," it said.

Billy's Legacy

The zoo eventually procured a mate for Billy in 1929, another pygmy hippo named Hannah. Hannah became mother to several of Billy's offspring, starting with a baby girl in 1938 that survived after two stillborn babies and the accidental trampling of another. The zoo gave the baby the name Gumdrop, allegedly after a young visitor described the baby as looking like a black licorice gumdrop.

More gumdrops followed. Billy and Hannah had additional offspring and the zoo added another mate for Billy named Matilda in 1940. In total, Billy had sired 18 hippos, all given the name Gumdrop with a Roman numeral after the name to denote which Gumdrop it was. Most of these babies were traded to other zoos in the country for other animals, giving zoos across the United States the chance to add a pygmy hippo to their collection.

Billy the hippo died in 1955, and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., no longer has a pygmy hippo exhibit. But the legacy of William Johnson Hippopotamus lives on as most of the zoos in the U.S. with pygmy hippos can trace back the lineage of their hippos to Billy and his Gumdrops.

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