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Lately, the hippopotamus has become a "problem animal" of sorts in Latin America, both in real life and in fiction.1 For one, there is the notorious case of Pablo Escobar's hippopotamuses. When Hacienda Nápoles, the estate, amusement park, and private zoo of Colombia's most famous drug dealer, was confiscated in the early 1990s, his animals were placed in zoos across the country. Yet his four hippopotamuses were left behind in their pond. Given the ideal humid conditions and the lack of predators, they reproduced at a much higher rate there than they would have in Africa. Now an estimated 40-60 hippopotamuses roam the area, some of which have left the compound and established themselves near and in the Magdalena River, posing a threat to the environment and the people in the region (Howard). This is, however, not an isolated incident. So-called "narco-zoos," ostentatious private estates that feature large, exotic, and rare mammals have become a staple of the Latin American narco-imaginary, as have the problems surrounding them (Dada). Escobar's Hacienda Nápoles created an aspirational blueprint, a modern-day menagerie for the narco-noblesse, and his hippos have become legendary.2 Whereas the real-life hippopotamuses pose an environmental issue, the fictional ones present an intellectual problem and curiosity. What does the presence of this African mammal in Latin American fiction mean? Recent scholarship has underscored the significance of animals in Latin American cultural and political thought on the present (Giorgi 13, 17; Rodríguez "El juguete" 193). Among them, the hippo stands out because it is an example of "charismatic megafauna" that fascinates humans (Heise 24), rendered even more spectacular in Latin America because its presence constitutes a modern-day continuation of the Columbian exchange. Since many of the novels featuring hippos are narco-themed, the presence of the hippopotamus at first appears to be a mere literary representation of the link between drug and animal trafficking, a mimetic reflection of the narco-fad of showcasing wealth through private zoos. Yet the meaning of this presence runs deeper, as I show through a discussion of two critically acclaimed and commercially successful narco-themed novels in which hippopotamuses play a key role: El ruido de las cosas al caer (2011) by Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Fiesta en la madriguera (2010) by Mexican author...