60 Fun Facts About Rhinoceros

How many living species of rhinoceros are there?

Two in Africa (white and black) and three in Asia (Indian, Javan and Sumatran).

The word 'rhinoceros' comes from Greek words meaning what?

Rhis is 'nose' and keras 'horn'; the plural can be either 'rhinoceros' or 'rhinoceroses'.

Rhino horns are made of what material?

The same stuff as hair and fingernails, which is why there is no good evidence of any medical benefit.

Rhinoceroses belong to which group of hoofed mammals?

That puts them in the same order as horses and tapirs; every living rhino has three toes on each foot.

Which two rhinos have no teeth at the front of their mouths and pluck food with their lips instead?

Black and white rhinos completely lack incisors; Asian rhinos keep a tusk-like lower incisor they use in fights.

Which two countries drove the market for rhino horn through the 2010s?

Yemen, where horn is carved into dagger handles, was the main source of demand in the 1970s and 1980s before demand shifted to East and Southeast Asia.

In which country was rhino horn traditionally used for dagger handles?

Esmond Bradley Martin documented that trade, the biggest driver of demand in the late 20th century.

Which two rhino species did Linnaeus name first, in 1758?

He put the genus Rhinoceros in the group Glires with the rodents, because the Indian rhino has incisors.

Linnaeus wrongly grouped rhinos with which animals?

The confusion came from the Indian rhino's incisor teeth.

Which is the smallest living rhino species?

It averages about 775 kg and is also the hairiest, a legacy of its kinship with the woolly rhinoceros.

Which is the largest living rhino species?

Males average 2,400 kg and exceptional specimens reportedly reach 4,500 kg.

Elasmotherium sibiricum, an Ice Age rhino from Eurasia, weighed an estimated how much?

At the other extreme, Menoceras of Miocene North America was sheep-sized at about 313 kg.

How many chromosomes does a black rhinoceros have, unlike every other rhino species?

All the others have 82; three northern whites in one study had 81.

Roughly how heavy is an adult black rhino's brain?

That is tiny for an animal of over a tonne; the skin, by contrast, is a collagen lattice up to 5 cm thick.

How do male rhinos check whether a female is ready to breed?

They then perform a flehmen response, curling back the upper lip.

How long is a white rhinoceros pregnancy?

The black rhino's is a little shorter at about 460 days; calves stand within 30 minutes of birth.

Rhino calves typically stand up within how long after birth?

They are suckling within two hours, and remain vulnerable to predators until about age three.

Which subspecies is the most abundant rhino on Earth, at over 20,000 animals?

The northern white, by contrast, is down to two captive females.

What does linguistic research say about the claim that 'white' rhino comes from Dutch or Afrikaans 'wide'?

There is no conclusive explanation for the name; the black rhino was simply named to contrast with it.

Which rhino has a flat, square lip built for grazing grass?

The square lip is for grazing grass; the black rhino's pointed lip grasps leaves and twigs.

How long is a white rhino's front horn on average?

It can reach 150 cm; the black rhino's front horn averages about 50 cm.

Black rhino numbers fell from about 70,000 in the late 1960s to a record low of how many in 1995?

They had doubled again to 4,880 by the end of 2010, still 90% below three generations earlier.

Which black rhino subspecies was declared extinct in November 2011?

The south-central subspecies remains the most numerous.

What does the Tswana name 'keitloa' describe?

It is a South African variant of the black rhino.

The Indian rhinoceros is also known by what name?

Its single horn is 20 to 60 cm and its folded, wart-studded skin gives it an armour-plated look.

Two-thirds of the world's Indian rhinos live in which national park?

It sits in the Golaghat district of Assam; a reintroduced pair also lives in Pakistan's Lal Suhanra National Park.

The entire wild population of Javan rhinos lives in which national park?

About 60 remained as of 2015, at the far western tip of Java; the last one in Vietnam was poached in 2011.

What is unusual about female Javan rhinos?

They are the only living rhinos that stay hornless into adulthood; the males' horns are the smallest of any rhino.

The last Javan rhino outside Indonesia was killed for its horn in 2011 in which country?

That left Java as the species' only home.

DNA shows the hairiest, most ancient living rhino is the closest relative of which extinct animal?

It is the most ancient of the living rhinos and can still be found at high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra.

About how many rhinos of the smallest, hairiest species are believed to remain?

It is the second most threatened rhino after the Javan.

Rhinos first migrated into Africa around when?

They had appeared in Asia and North America 39-40 million years ago; North America's rhinos died out about 5 million years ago.

On which continent did rhinos go entirely extinct at the start of the Pliocene?

In the Miocene as many as nine species had coexisted in South Asia alone.

Besides humans, what threatens rhinos in nature?

Adults have no real natural predators; their weakness is that they visit water holes daily, which makes them easy to poach.

How many rhinos were poached in South Africa in 2015?

The toll had been 333 in 2010; South Africa holds about 80% of the world's rhinos.

International trade in rhino horn has been illegal under CITES since which year?

China removed rhino horn from its medicine pharmacopoeia in 1993; a Swaziland bid to lift the ban failed in 2016.

A 2025 study in Science found that dehorning rhinos cut poaching by roughly how much?

Rangers tranquillise the animals and remove the horn, which regrows like a fingernail.

The Rhino Rescue Project infuses living rhinos' horns with a pink dye and what else?

It also inserts three RFID chips; the aim is to make the horn worthless to consumers, though Save the Rhino doubts it works.

Which government auctions licences to hunt five black rhinos a year to fund conservation?

The money goes to a Game Products Trust Fund; the practice is contested by some conservationists.

Which artist made a famous 1515 woodcut of a rhinoceros he had never seen?

He worked from a written description and sketch of an Indian rhino brought to Lisbon, which is why the animal wears plates of armour.

King Manuel I sent the rhinoceros of the 1515 woodcut as a gift to whom, only for it to drown?

Europe would not see another live rhino until Abada reached the Portuguese court in 1577.

Clara, an Indian rhinoceros who toured Europe for 17 years, arrived in which city in 1741?

She was only the fifth living rhino seen in Europe since 1515 and died in Lambeth, England, in 1758.

Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros, died in 2018 at which Kenyan conservancy?

He was captured in South Sudan in 1975 for a Czech zoo and euthanised at 45 for age-related complications.

What are the names of the last two northern white rhinos, both female?

Najin is Fatu's mother and Sudan's daughter; both live under armed guard in Kenya.

Which Czech zoo owns the last northern white rhinos and bred a white rhino subspecies hybrid in 1977?

Interspecies hybrids between black and white rhinos have also been confirmed.

In Malay legend, the 'badak api' is a rhinoceros that does what?

The 1980 film The Gods Must Be Crazy shows a rhino putting out two campfires; there are no recent confirmations.

Which Hindu god is depicted in Khmer art riding a rhinoceros?

In medieval Thai literature the same fire god, Phra Phloeng, is sometimes described riding one too.

A lavender rhinoceros became a symbol of the gay community in which US city in 1974?

It was chosen as an animal that is peaceful until provoked.

Ice Age rhinoceroses appear in the Palaeolithic paintings of which French cave?

The paintings date to around 30,000-40,000 years ago.

In Europe, rhino horn was historically believed to have which power?

It was also thought to be an aphrodisiac, a belief that no historical Chinese medical text actually shares.

In traditional Chinese medicine, rhino horn is sometimes prescribed for what?

The treatment has been compared to drinking fingernail clippings in water; the aphrodisiac and cancer-cure stories are misconceptions.

At the mid-2010s peak, an average rhino horn fetched up to how much in its main market?

Horn poached in South Africa flowed mainly to Vietnam, where mid-2010s prices peaked near $250,000 per horn.

What is the average weight of an adult white rhinoceros, the heaviest living species?

At the other end of the range, the Sumatran rhino averages about 775 kg.

Menoceras, an Early Miocene rhino from North America, weighed about as much as which animal?

Its estimated 313 kg body mass is comparable to a sheep or a pig, a far cry from the 4,500 kg Elasmotherium.

A pair of Indian rhinos reintroduced from Nepal live in Lal Suhanra National Park in which country?

The species once ranged from Pakistan to Myanmar but now clings to protected foothill grasslands of the Himalayas.

What is the name of the lip-curling behaviour male rhinos perform after tasting a female's urine?

All living rhinos have a polyandrous and polygynous mating system, with both sexes seeking multiple partners.

How many subspecies of black rhinoceros are recognised?

The south-central subspecies is the most numerous, once ranging from Tanzania to eastern South Africa.

Which conservationist publicly denounced governments and NGOs in 1994 over the Sumatran rhino?

He argued the animals would have to be relocated from tiny forest fragments for any hope of saving them.

Besides dye and acaricide, what does the Rhino Rescue Project insert into treated horns?

DNA samples are taken at the same time, and the horn's fibrous structure lets pressurised dye soak right through.

Matthew Markus of which biotech firm proposed synthetic rhino horn to undercut the trade?

The idea is to register the genetic code of the bioengineered horn so authorities can tell it from the real thing.