Fiona the hippo dazzles in front of the cameras

Science

Reporters and photographers gathered in the cove Wednesday evening, cameras and video cameras at the ready. Watching, waiting intently.

After all, they'd — we'd — been waiting months for this. The chance to get a glimpse of the much buzzed-about celebrity. Maybe even photograph her in the pool.

We'd followed what she's been eating, talked at length about her weight gain. Followed her on social media and wondered what she would be like in real life.

Finally, it was time for Fiona, the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden's baby hippo, to walk the wet carpet. Her night to meet the press.

A hush fell as she appeared in the doorway, three members of her entourage in tow. Journalists scrambled for position. Each hoping to get the shot.

She trotted across the bottom of the pool — hippos don't swim, you know — following along with her people. Occasionally "porpoising" up to the surface to breathe.

Then, a chorus of squeals broke the quiet. Fiona had noticed the people noticing her. She approached the glass, gazed at her admirers. Turned, as if to say, "be sure to get my good side."

She was already a media darling. Already had reached millions on social media.

And now she has greeted the media in the flesh, all 275 pounds of it.

"It's kind of the crown accomplishment to have her out here acting the same as a normal, mother-reared hippo," said Christina Gorsuch, curator of mammals and "coach" of the zoo's Team Fiona, noting that Fiona is now on pace with where she'd be if she were not born prematurely. "This was hard to imagine four months ago."

Fionamade a her debut to the media in Hippo Cove at

It wasn't Fiona's first foray into Hippo Cove, the zoo's outdoor hippo habitat, though. She'd already explored the exhibit a handful of times, after zoo hours.

Sometimes, eager zoo staff and volunteers waited on the other side of the glass, helping her learn how the setup works (that she can see people through the glass, but she can’t touch them, for one thing).

The swimmers, members of Fiona's care team, join her in the outdoor habitat to make sure that she's safe and comfortable in the water. It's 9 feet from the bottom of the pool to the surface, a long way for a little hippo to propel herself to get air.

In the wild, she'd never be alone in such a situation. Her mother or other members of her bloat — a hippo herd, so to speak — would be close by. So at the zoo, members of her surrogate bloat — her caretakers — stay with her in case she struggles.

Fionamade a her debut to the media in Hippo Cove at

To recap: Fiona was born on Jan. 24, six weeks premature, and weighed only 29 pounds. That's really, really small. Before Fiona came along, recorded birth weights for baby hippos ranged from 55-120 pounds.

So far, her interactions with mom Bibi and dad Henry have gone well, to the point that zoo staff members remove the mesh in the barrier that separates them to allow for (supervised) face-to-face contact. But zoo staff don't want to rush things, so they don't have an exact timeline for when all three hippos might be able to share the same space.

After all, though Fiona has gotten much bigger, she's still really small for a hippo: She tips the scales at less than 10% of her parents' weight (Henry is around 3,600 pounds; Bibi, around 3,100).

Fionaplays in Hippo Cove during her debut at the Cincinnati

"It's just making sure that Fiona is big enough and strong enough to be treated like a hippo," Gorsuch said.

A note to Fiona's adoring public: Don't rush to the zoo to see her, as she's not yet ready to go on public view. A date for that is still to be determined, though zoo officials hope it will be within the next few weeks.

She'll likely start by going out into Hippo Cove only for short periods of time. Even then, there's always the chance she'll be napping behind a rock — taking a well-deserved break from her life in the public eye.

"There's no doubt she has to be the most famous hippo ever," Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard pointed out. "I can't name another hippo."