Put on a smiley face - new emojis are coming

If you find typing “hippopotamus” on your phone too arduous‚ help is at hand.

Unicode has just released a new set of 157 emojis that will introduce a host of new animals‚ emotions‚ characters and items into online conversations.

They will start showing up on phones in August or September‚ said a note posted on the Unicode blog.

Unicode characters allow laptops‚ smartphones and tablets to share or exchange text‚ and ensures an emoji sent from an iPhone is recognised on an Android device.

The new set includes new hairstyles for men and women‚ baldness‚ hot and cold faces‚ woozy or intoxicated faces and activities such as sewing‚ knitting‚ chess and skateboarding.

There are also cupcakes‚ bagels and mangoes‚ as well as male and female superheroes and villains with different skin tones.

A parrot‚ peacock‚ mosquito‚ swan and lobster are among the new animals. And‚ of course‚ a hippopotamus.