Baby hippo Moo Deng becomes an online sensation for his “jumping pork” in a small Thai zoo

Chonburi, Thailand — Just a month after Thailand's cute baby hippo Moo Deng was introduced on Facebook, her fame at home and abroad has been unstoppable. Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting sweet moments of the animals in his care for about five years, but he never imagined that Khao Kheow Open Zoo's newborn pygmy hippo would become an internet megastar in just a few weeks.

Long before the zoo opened on Thursday, a line of cars formed outside the zoo. Visitors came from far and wide to see the chubby, expressive 2-month-old animal in person at the zoo, about 60 miles southeast of Bangkok. The pit where Moo Deng lives with her mother Jona was almost immediately full, with people cooing and cheering every time the pink-cheeked baby animal made jumpy movements.

“It exceeded all expectations,” Atthapon told the Associated Press. “I wanted people to know about her. I wanted lots of people to visit her, watch her online or leave funny comments. I never imagined this.”

Moo Deng, which literally means “springy pork” in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans via a social media poll and fits in with her other siblings: Moo Toon (braised pork) and Moo Waan (sweet pork). The zoo also has a common hippo named Kha Moo (braised pork leg).

“She is such a little lump. I would like to crumple her into a ball and swallow her whole!” said Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya during a visit to the zoo on Thursday.

Moo Deng has already appeared in memes, artists are drawing cartoons based on her, and social media platform X even featured her in a post on its official account.

With all this fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi said they have begun patenting and trademarking “Moo Deng the hippo” to prevent the animal from being commercialized by others. “After that, we will have more revenue to support activities that improve the lives of animals,” he said. “The profits we make from this will benefit the zoo and improve the lives of all the animals here.”

The zoo covers almost 2,000 hectares of land and is home to more than 2,000 animals. It runs breeding programs for many endangered species, including the Moo Deng hippopotamus. The pygmy hippopotamus, native to West Africa, is threatened by poaching and habitat loss. There are only 2,000 to 3,000 specimens left in the wild.

To fund the initiative, the zoo is producing Moo Deng shirts and pants that will be available for sale at the end of the month, with more items to follow.

Narongwit believes that one factor of Moo Deng's fame is her name, which highlights her energetic and chaotic personality, as expressed in Atthapon's creative captions and video clips.

Appropriately, Moo Deng loves to “deng,” or hop, and Atthapon has posted many cute moments on social media of her bouncing around. Even when she's not hopping, the hippo is endlessly cute – squirming when Atthapon tries to wash her, biting him when he tries to play with her, and quietly closing her eyes when he rubs her pink cheeks or chubby belly.

Atthapon, who has worked at the zoo for eight years and cares for hippos, sloths, capybaras and binturongs, said baby hippos are usually more playful and energetic and become calmer as they get older.

Since Moo Deng's fame, the zoo has seen an influx of visitors – so much so that public access to the babies' enclosure must now be limited to five-minute time slots on weekends.

Narongwit said the zoo received over 4,000 visitors on weekdays, up from around 800 previously, and more than 10,000 on weekends, up from around 3,000 previously.

But fame has also brought Moo Deng some hostile visitors, who are only awake and ready to play for about two hours a day. Some videos show visitors splashing water or throwing objects at the sleeping baby hippo to wake it up. A sign warning visitors not to throw objects at Moo Deng now hangs at the hippo pool – prominently displayed on the front in Thai, English and Chinese.

Narongwit said the zoo would take action under the Animal Welfare Act if people mistreat the animal. The zoo director said since clips of people mistreating Moo Deng appeared online and sparked strong reactions, they had not seen anyone behaving like that again.

For fans who cannot make the journey or are discouraged by the sight of the crowds at Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo has set up cameras and plans to start a 24-hour live broadcast of the baby hippo next week.