Rhinoceros

For other uses, see Rhinoceros (disambiguation).

Rhinoceros
Black Rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	Rhinocerotidae Gray, 1821
Genera
Ceratotherium Dicerorhinus Diceros Rhinoceros Coelodonta (extinct) Elasmotherium (extinct)

The rhinoceros (commonly called rhino for short; plural can be either rhinoceros or rhinoceroses) is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. All five species are native to Africa or Asia. Rhinoceros is also one of the genera in this family.

The family is characterised by: large size (one of the few remaining megafauna surviving today) with all of the species capable of reaching one tonne or more in weight; a horn on the centre of the forehead (sometimes with a second one behind it); herbivorous diet; and a thick protective skin, 1.5-5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure. Rhinoceros also have acute hearing and sense of smell, but poor eyesight over any distance. Most rhinoceros live to be about 50 years old or more. A male rhinoceros is called a bull, a female a cow, and the young a calf; a group of rhinoceros is called a "crash".

Rhinoceros, despite being herbivorous, are dangerous animals. In India and Nepal, the Indian rhinos cause the greatest number of human deaths each year, surpassing those caused by tigers and leopards. They have been known to charge even working elephants carrying tourists through the jungles.

Family

Family Rhinocerotidae

• Ceratotherium
  • C. simum - White Rhinoceros
• Dicerorhinus
  • D. sumatrensis - Sumatran Rhinoceros
• Diceros
  • D. bicornis - Black Rhinoceros
• Rhinoceros
  • R. unicornis - Indian Rhinoceros
  • R. sondaicus - Javan Rhinoceros
• Coelodonta
  • C. antiquitatis - Woolly Rhinoceros (extinct)
• Elasmotherium
  • E. sibiricum - Giant Unicorn (extinct)

The Indian Rhinoceros

Several rhinoceros species became extinct within geologically recent times, notably the Giant Unicorn and the Woolly Rhinoceros in Eurasia; the extent to which climate change or human predation was responsible is debated. Current evidence indicates that they probably had survived many climate changes when modern man arrived.

Rhinoceros-like animals first appeared in the Eocene as rather slender animals, and by the late Miocene there were many different species. Most were large. One, Indricotherium, may have weighed about 20 tons and (so far as is known) was the largest terrestrial mammal that ever lived. Rhinos in North America became extinct during the Pliocene, and in northern Asia and Europe during the Pleistocene.

The five living species fall into three tribes.

1. The critically endangered Sumatran Rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (abut 20 million years ago). The extinct Woolly Rhinoceros of northern Europe and Asia was also a member of this tribe.
2. There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the endangered Indian Rhinoceros and the critically endangered Javan Rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago.
3. The two African species, the White Rhinoceros and the Black Rhinoceros, diverged during the early Pliocene (about 5 million years ago) but the Dicerotini group to which they belong originated in the middle Miocene, about 14 million years ago. The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their lips. White rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing and black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage. The name White Rhinoceros was actually a mistake for wijd (wide) because of their square lips.

A subspecific hybrid white rhino (Ceratotherium s. simum × C. s. cottoni) was bred at the Dvurkralv Zoo (Zoological Garden Dvur Kralove nad Labem) in the Czech Republic in 1977.

Interspecific hybridisation of Black and White Rhinoceros has also been confirmed.

Rhinoceros horn

File:RhinocerosHorn.jpg

Folk beliefs about rhino horns are a major factor in their decline. (Tulsa Zoo)

The most obvious distinguishing characteric of the rhinos is a large horn above the nose. The word rhinoceros comes from the Greek words rhino (nose) and keros (horn). Rhinoceros horns, unlike those of other horned mammals, consist of keratin.

Rhinoceros horns are used in traditional Asian medicine, and for dagger handles in Yemen and Oman. None of the five rhinoceros species have secure futures; the White Rhinoceros is perhaps the least endangered, the Javan Rhinoceros survives in only tiny numbers (estimated at 60 animals in 2002) and is one of the two or three most endangered large mammals anywhere in the world.

Rhino protection campaigns began in the 1970s, but rhino populations have continued to decline dramatically. Trade in rhinoceros parts is forbidden under the CITES agreements, but poaching is a severe threat to all rhinoceros species.

Legends

Rhinoceros sculpture, Biological Sciences Building, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There are a number of legends about rhinoceroses stamping out fire. The story seems to have been common in Malaysia and Burma.

This type of rhinoceros even had a special name in Malay, badak api, where badak means rhinoceros and api means fire. The animal would come when a fire is lit in the forest and stamp it out.

Whether or not there is any truth to this has not yet been proven, as there has been no documented sighting of this phenomenon in recent history. This lack of evidence may stem from the fact that rhinoceros sightings overall in Southeast Asia have become very rare, largely due to widespread illegal poaching of the critically endangered animal.

The idea of rhinos stamping out fire featured prominently in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy and also in an episode of The Simpsons.

Also in James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, James' parents are swallowed by a rhinoceros but rhinoceros are, in fact, herbivores.

Dürer's Rhinoceros, in a woodcut from 1515.

Albrecht Dürer created a famous woodcut of a rhinoceros in 1515, without ever seeing the animal depicted. As a result, Dürer's Rhinoceros is rather inaccurate.

References

• Chapman, Jan. 1999. The Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving in China. Christies Books, London. ISBN 0903432579.
• Laufer, Berthold. 1914. "History of the Rhinoceros." In: Chinese Clay Figures, Part I: Prolegomena on the History of Defence Armor. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, pp. 73-173.
• Rhinoceros skin and horn characteristics (pdf file)
• Robinson, Terry J. (2005). "Interspecific hybridisation in rhinoceroses: Confirmation of a Black × White rhinoceros hybrid by karyotype, fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) and microsatellite analysis". Conservation Genetics. 6 (1): 141–145. doi:10.1007/s10592-004-7750-9. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• International Rhino Foundation
• SOS Rhino
• Save The Rhino
• Rhinoceros entry on WWF website.
• Rhino photos and information (includes black and white rhinos)