However, his observations were frequently disbelieved in the academic community. He shot two of the animals in 1935 and sent their skulls to the Natural History Museum, London, for scientific study. He shot another in 1943, and prepared the animal's entire carcass as a scientific specimen; he sent its skin to the Natural History Museum in 1968, and it was used by the naturalist to demonstrate that the Nigerian pygmy hippopotamus was indeed a distinct subspecies from the Liberian (Choeropsis liberiensis liberiensis). Corbet named the Nigerian subspecies Hexaprotodon liberiensis heslopi in Heslop's honour.
