African Rhinos
Scientific Name:
Black: Diceros bicornis
White: Ceratotherium simum
Weight:
Black: 1 to 1.5 tn. (2,000 to 3,000 lb.)
White: More than 2 tn. (4,000+ lb.)
Size:
Head and body: 11 to 13.75 feet; tail: 20 to 27.5 inches
Life span:
35 to 40 years
Diet:
Herbivorous
A rhinoceros, commonly abbreviated to rhino, is one of any five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae, as well as any of the numerous extinct species therein. Two of the extant species are native to Africa, and three to Southern Asia. The term "rhinoceros" is often more broadly applied to now extinct species of the superfamily Rhinocerotoidea. Rhinos may look like prehistoric creatures, and they do date back millions of years to the Miocene era, but they are also mammals like us. There are two species of African rhinos, the white rhino and black rhino, and each is distinct in its own way. The white, or square-lipped, rhino derives its name from the Dutch word “weit,” meaning wide. It is actually gray in color and has a hump on its neck and a long face. The black, or hooked-lipped, rhino has a thick, hairless gray hide. Both rhinos have two horns.
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
Wildlife in Africa
The African rhino is divided into two species, the black rhino and the white rhino. White rhinos mainly live in South Africa, but they have also been reintroduced to Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. Southern white rhinos have been introduced to Kenya, Zambia, and Cote d’Ivoire. The majority of the black rhino population—98%—is concentrated in four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. South Africa houses 40% of the total black rhino population. There are some black rhinos in the region spread between Cameroon and Kenya.
There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central (Diceros bicornis minor), the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa; South-western (Diceros bicornis occidentalis) which are better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana and western South Africa; East African (Diceros bicornis michaeli), primarily in Tanzania; and West African (Diceros bicornis longipes) which was declared extinct in November 2011.[12] The native Tswanan name keitloa describes a South African variation of the black rhino in which the posterior horn is equal to or longer than the anterior horn
White rhinos live on Africa's grassy plains, where they sometimes gather in groups of as many as a dozen individuals. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Under the hot African sun, white rhinos take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sunblock. Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
The black rhino is a browser. Its triangular-shaped upper lip, which ends in a grasping point, is used to eat a large variety of vegetation—including leaves; buds; and shoots of plants, bushes, and trees. It can be found in various habitats that have dense, woody vegetation. The white rhino lives in savannas, which have water holes, mud wallows, shade trees, and the grasses they graze on.
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