You know where the Ruin Maniac is trying to dig a path to the Solaceon Ruins? Well for every 5 or 6 different Unown you capture, the tunnel grows a bit longer. (Incidentally, catch all 26 and the tunnel connects to the place in the ruins where you can catch ? and ! Unown.)
You can catch a hippo in the tunnel the guy is digging. The appearance rate grows somewhat depending on how far the tunnel is to being complete.
When it's the initial Ruin Maniac Cave hippos have only a 5% chance of showing up. After you start expanding the Cave, the rate goes to 10%. When the area becomes the Ruin Maniac Tunnel, hippos have a 20% appearance rate.