And you thought the madness was going to stop with 2020.

Scientists are now warning about the ecological dangers being posed to Colombia's tropics due to a roaming herd of wild hippos.

If you thought hippos were native to a different continent altogether, you'd be right: these chompers were illegally brought to the country by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.

When Escobar was killed in a shootout with the police in 1993, his 7,000 acre playboy estate was seized by the government (although it's now an amusement park). This included his personal zoo, where four hippos managed to escape.

Biology being biology, these hippos have multiplied to a herd of 80-100 and are wreaking havoc on local wildlife.

Environmentalists are warning that an exponential increase is about to happen – the herd could multiply to over 2,400 in the next four years alone.

The hippos have spread out across a series of small lakes in northern Colombia. While scientists had hoped to simply neuter the population, they now say the hippos must be culled.

I've studiously created a simulation of what the Hippapocalypse could look like if we don't stop this threat now:

Who knows where it could go from there????

Of course, other scientists have said these hippos might give us unique insight into how ecosystems once looked before many of the larger herbivores – like Woolly Mammoths and Notoungulatas – died out or were killed by humans in the Americas. If we fail to stop the hippos before they conquer us all, at least some good scientific study might come of it!

Thanks to subscriber @Whistler for the hot tip on this article.