A giant hippopotamus, a wooden sculpture designed by Florentijin Hofman, is making its debut on the Thames in London on Tuesday.

Hippo Sculpture Floats Down The Thames

Affectionately titled the HippopoThames will arrive at London’s Riverside Gardens at 5:30 p.m. local time Sept. 2. The debut of the floating sculpture, which measures over 63 feet long, will be celebrated with food, drinks and activities for the start of the Totally Thames Festival that will be going on for the next 30 days in the 17 London boroughs.

Hofman, the artist behind the 61-foot-tall rubber duck that traveled the waterways of the U.S., Australia, Brazil, France, China and Japan last year, was commissioned by the Thames Festival Trust. Wanting to design something comparable to the rubber duck, which became a worldwide sensation, Hofman decided on a hippo.

"If you have done a rubber duck, you have to do something good to follow up," Hofman explained to the Telegraph. "I am thrilled and excited to be using the Thames as the location of my first UK commission. The purpose of setting my sculptures in the public domain has always been to give members of the public a break from their daily routines, to inspire conversation and to cause astonishment."

Hofman landed on the idea to create a hippo due to the animal’s history in the Thames. In prehistoric times, before it settled in sub-Saharan Africa, the mammal could be spotted in the English river.