Eery Belgrade urban legend lasts 65 years, some still fear it: Buca is accused of swallowing a baby

Photo: Mateja Beljan

"A terrible, terrible thing happened at the Zoo a long time ago - Buca ("Chubby") the hippopotamus ate a baby!"

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This is not a bizarre joke, but fortunately, it's also not true. Yet even to this can one can hear the story that Buca did something so terrible. This is an eery urban legend that has spread through the city, and survives...

The hippopotamus, which can swallow quite a bit, while the pile of fruit it grinds in its mouth is just one bite of dessert, has not hurt anyone after all.

"Did you know that in 1945, exactly 75 years ago, someone spread a fabricated story about a woman who dropped a baby into a pool for hippos and then Buca swallowed it? That story, although fictional, spread quickly and even today some very elderly Belgraders talk about it," Zoran Rajic posted on the Facebook page of the Zoological Society of Serbia/Friends of the Beo (Belgrade) Zoo.

The story probably spreads easily because it seems like a popular lesson that you should look after your children. And such a bizarre case, when a child falls and is eaten by an unusual beast, is easily engraved in the mind and causes uncomfortable thoughts: "What a mother, what an accident, how terrible..."

But you should know that hippos are mostly herbivores. However, while they are cute animals in zoos, in nature they are very dangerous to people, because they get aggressive in defending their territory.

(Telegraf.rs)