It could have been a scene straight out of a romantic comedy: Fiona, a hippopotamus in the Cincinnati Zoo in the US received a special birthday gift from a male admirer from San Antonio Zoo.

Timothy has been publicly courting Fiona on social media – via human agents – for some time now, and on her second birthday, the San Antonio Zoo tweeted a video of him attempting to “sing” a birthday song for her before letting a five-person mariachi band take over.

Cincinnati Zoo also posted its own special birthday video (bottom) for Fiona, who has achieved celebrity status. She was born with a dangerously low weight of 13 kilograms, but managed to survive. The zoo reported in December 2018 that she had reached 454 kilograms.

Although Timothy’s efforts to win Fiona over are ongoing, and the Cinicinnati Zoo’s has replied on behalf of Fiona with good news, whether or not the two could get together is dependent on the compatibility of their DNA to ensure genetic diversity.

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