Roaming Rhinoceroses

 A rhinoceros will most likely only travel if it needs to find food, water or a partner.

Picture from Michael Farino

It is said that when food and water are both abundant, a rhino will have no incentive to travel, so they will stay in their favored localities.  Because rhinos do not need to drink everyday and generally have no major probably obtaining water, they will travel to find food or partners.  If it is during a dry season however, they will increase their range of travel from 12 sq. km up to 20 sq. km.

Flying Rhinos

Even in their native South Africa, one thing you certainly don’t ever expect to see is a flying rhinoceros.

These pictures show a sedated black rhinoceros being transported via helicopter as part of the WWF Black Rhino Range Expansion Project. Black rhinos are frequent victims of poaching, and the WWF has been working with South African landowners to provide new habitat for them.

Previously, rhinos had to be loaded onto trucks or transported in airlift nets to be extricated from areas with rough terrain. Veterinarians working on the project agree that suspending rhinos by the ankles is the quickest and least stressful transport method for the animals. These helicopter trips usually last less than ten minutes and do not hurt the rhinos. To date, the WWF has relocated over 120 black rhinos.

Story and photos via.

The Gigantic Gaur

Though not as large as some domesticated cattle, gaur are the largest wild cattle on earth. In fact, the only land animals that regularly grow heavier than gaur are elephants, rhinos and hippos. The largest male gaur can be ten feet long, stand over six feet tall at the shoulders and weigh well over 4,000lbs!

Gaur are mostly dark brown in color with older bulls appearing nearly black. Males can be identified by the large dorsal ridge on their backs which can extend several inches higher than the rump. Both sexes feature horns that can be over two feet long connected on the head by a grey ridge of fur.

Once common throughout most of southern Asia, gaur populations have seriously declined and fragmented over the last fifty years. Overhunting, poaching and destruction of habitat are the main causes of this, leading to these animals currently being classified as vulnerable and nearly endangered. Their current ranges included portions of India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

Gaur are not known to be particularly aggressive animals and rarely fight even amongst themselves. Fully grown males are far too large for any natural predator except for tigers, and have even been known to kill tigers in self defense. However, herds near human populations can be short tempered towards both humans and livestock animals.

Protecting With Horns

Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually. gray. Their differences come from their lip shape as a result of their diet. White rhinos have square lips and graze on grasses, while black rhinos have a pointed upper lip to pick leaves and fruits from trees. White rhinos have two horns, one of which is significantly longer than the other. Their horns grow as much as three inches a year and sometimes even grow up to five feet long. Female rhinos  use their horn to protect their young, while males use theirs to fight off predators. 

Animals In Literature

Rudyard Kipling wasn't just the author of The Jungle Book. He also penned the delightful Just So Stories. In these tales, Kipling explained to his readers how animals became the way they are today. He talked to us as his own children, frequently calling us "Best Beloved," and used rhyme and repetition to entertain.

Perhaps the most famous of these stories is The Elephants Child. In the tale, elephants only have funny, stubby noses. It takes an elephant, a new elephant, an elephant's child "full of 'satiable curtiosity" who travels to the "great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees" and returns with a glorious trunk. But to find out how he got it, and what he did with it, you'll have to read the book.

Kipling also told us How the Leopard got its Spots, How the Whale got its Throat, and How the Rhino got its Skin. In The Crab who Played with the Sea, we find the reason for tides and in The Butterfly that Stamped we learn the benefits of being humble. He introduced us to exotic places and intriguing animals. I didn't even know there was such a creature as a mongoose until I read Kipling's story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

I have always loved Kipling's animal stories. Not because he takes his characters and imbues them with human traits, but because he imbues them with more than human traits. His animals are wiser, more tolerant, more just and far nobler than we humans could hope to be.

Rhinocerceros: Not Just African Animals

When I think of rhinos I remember the old John Wayne movie Hitari that I saw as a kid. I can still see those images of the rhinos. Maybe that’s why I often think of rhinos only as African animals, but in reality there are two species are from Africa and also three species in Asia.

The African rhinoceros are the Black Rhinoceros and the White Rhinoceros (this name has nothing to do with color – see the animal facts page for an explanation). African rhinos don’t have teeth at the front of their mouths.

The Asian rhinoceros are the Javan, Sumatran and Indian. Only the white rhino is not endangered

Animal Facts: The Kneeless Rhino

As the title of this post states, rhinoceroses have no knees. They are also an odd-toed ungulate, which means they have hooves that have an odd number of toes.

Rhinos are know for their large size, weighing up to a ton. But for being as big as they are, they have a relatively small brain. Rhinos are also characterized by their horns (depending on the species they have one or two horns). Unfortunately, their horns, which can be sold for medicinal purposes or as hunting trophies on the black market, make them a prime target for poaches. Three of the five species of rhinos are now endangered.