WATCH: Baby hippo refuses to leave pool until mom gives 'maternal stare of authority'

CapeTalk's Clarence Ford speaks to Digital Content Editor Barbara Friedman about trending online stories.

Listen below: 

In a heartwarming moment that's taken the internet by storm, a baby pygmy hippo named Mars captured millions of hearts when he stubbornly refused to leave a pond at Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Kansas... until his mother intervened with a silent, but unmistakable, look.

The six-week-old hippo - one of only 3,000 remaining in the wild - was captured on video resisting a zookeeper's attempt to get him out for dinner until his mom, Posie, gave him 'the stare', which immediately rendered Mars obedient.

The playful standoff quickly went viral, racking up nearly 35 million views on TikTok and spreading even further across platforms like X, where users instantly related to the 'mom stare' - if you know, you know.

One comment summed it up perfectly: "The mom stare is universal in every species."

Watch the moment below:

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