Black Rhinoceros
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40 free Black Rhinoceros trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The black rhinoceros is one of Africa's most famous animals and one of its most misunderstood. Its name is misleading, its temper is legendary, and the story of how close it came to vanishing in the late twentieth century is one of the starkest in conservation. This quiz collects the fun facts people most often look for about black rhinos: what their horns are made of, how they feed, how they keep cool, which birds ride on their backs, how fast they can charge and how they talk to one another. It also covers the places where they survive, the people who named and studied them, and the inventive ways rangers now move and protect them. It suits animal lovers, students working on a wildlife project and anyone planning a safari who wants to know what they are looking at. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few facts worth repeating.
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Q 01The black rhinoceros and its so-called white cousin are actually both which colour?
Grey
Grey is the real colour of both African rhinos. The black rhino probably got its name as a contrast to the white rhino, or from the dark mud that dries on its skin.
Q 02About half of all male black rhinos are thought to die from which cause, a record among mammals?
Fighting each other
Fighting each other is thought to kill about half of all males, the highest rate of mortal combat recorded for any mammal.
Q 03Which unusual position, studied in an Ig Nobel-winning experiment, is used to airlift black rhinos by helicopter?
Hanging upside down
Hanging upside down by the feet looks alarming, but it lets crews fly rhinos into rugged country with very few roads. The study that checked its safety won a 2021 Ig Nobel Prize.
Q 04The red-billed oxpecker, which rides on black rhinoceroses, has a Swahili name with which meaning?
The rhino's guard
The rhino's guard earns its name. In one study, black rhinos carrying oxpeckers noticed an approaching human every time, against 23 percent of those without the birds.
Q 05Black rhino horn is made of keratin, the protein found in which parts of the human body?
Hair and fingernails
Hair and fingernails are built from the same keratin as rhino horn, and there is no good evidence that swallowing any of it has health benefits.
Q 06Male rhinos are bulls and females cows, but a group of black rhinos goes by which collective noun?
A crash
A crash is the collective noun for rhinos, though you will rarely see one: adult black rhino bulls spend most of their time alone.
Q 07Running on its toes, a one-tonne black rhinoceros can charge at roughly what top speed?
34 mph
34 mph, or 55 km/h, is the top speed on record, and a black rhino at full tilt can change direction quickly and run straight through scrub.
Q 08As odd-toed ungulates, black rhinos count tapirs and which other animals as their closest living relatives?
Horses
Horses, zebras and asses share the order Perissodactyla with rhinos and tapirs, although a horse runs on one toe per foot and a rhino walks on three.
Q 09Which feature, used for grasping twigs, gives the black rhinoceros its alternative common name?
A hooked upper lip
A hooked upper lip works like a finger for plucking food, hence the name hook-lipped rhinoceros. The white rhino's mouth is square instead, for cropping grass.
Q 10Black rhinos spend the hottest hours of the day rolling in mud, which coats their skin with what?
Sunblock and bug repellent
Sunblock and bug repellent in one: a mud coat shields a black rhino's skin from the sun and from biting insects, while the wallow itself cools the animal down.
Q 11Africa's Big Five, a hunters' list, includes the black rhino, the lion and which other cat?
Leopard
Leopard is the other cat on the list, which big-game hunters coined for the five most difficult animals to hunt on foot.
Q 12Adult black rhinos have few natural enemies, but lions and which other predators sometimes take calves?
Hyenas
Hyenas and lions occasionally take young black rhinos, and a calf stays with its mother for two to three years.
Q 13An adult black rhino normally fears no predator, but which reptile has occasionally killed one?
Crocodile
Crocodile attacks are the rare exception. An adult black rhino's size, thick skin and deadly horns otherwise leave it with no natural predators.
Q 21Because it eats twigs and shrubs rather than grass, the black rhino is classed as which type of feeder?
Browser
Browser is the term for an animal that feeds on bushes and trees, and a black rhino's bite leaves woody stems cut at a clean angle, as if by pruning shears.
Q 22Black rhinos have been recorded eating up to 220 plant species but show a preference for which African trees?
Acacia
Acacia species are a favourite, along with plants of the spurge family, and black rhinos tend to choose their food for quality over quantity.
Q 23Black rhinos often walk to water holes along the same trails used by which larger animals?
Elephants
Elephants and black rhinos follow the same wide trails between food and water, and they compete for food too: beside elephants, black rhinos shift their diet.
Q 14Rooted in the skin at its base, a black rhino's horn does what throughout the animal's life?
Keeps growing
Keeps growing: a rhino's horn never stops, adding as much as three inches a year, and the longest have reached about five feet.
Q 15The white rhino, the black rhino's cousin, is said to take its name from an Afrikaans word meaning what?
Wide
Wide, or wyd, described the white rhino's broad, square mouth. English speakers are said to have heard it as white, and the other African rhino became black by contrast.
Q 16For much of the 20th century, the black rhino held which distinction among the world's rhino species?
The most numerous
The most numerous rhino on Earth still numbered about 70,000 in the late 1960s, before demand for horn cut the population by 96 percent between 1970 and 1992.
Q 17A black rhino's tube-shaped ears pick up sounds over vast distances because they can do what?
Rotate in all directions
Rotate in all directions is the trick: each ear swivels freely to track a sound, and with an excellent sense of smell it gives a black rhino early warning of danger.
Q 18Asian rhinos cross rivers with ease, but the black rhino avoids deep water for which reason?
They swim poorly
They swim poorly and can drown in deep water, so African rhinos cool off in a mud wallow instead of taking a dip.
Q 19The word rhinoceros, as in black rhinoceros, comes from two Ancient Greek words that together mean what?
Nose horn
Nose horn is the literal meaning, from the Greek rhis and keras, and the name has been in use since the 14th century.
Q 20Black rhinos snort when angry and scream when scared, but which noise does their alarm call resemble?
A sneeze
A sneeze is what the alarm call sounds like, while a relaxed black rhino makes a contented noise usually written as mmwonk.
Q 24After its numbers collapsed by 96 percent between 1970 and 1992, the black rhino holds which IUCN Red List status?
Critically Endangered
Critically Endangered has been the black rhino's listing since 1996, even though numbers have more than doubled from a low of about 2,400.
Q 25In the 1970s, Middle Eastern demand for black rhino horn exploded because it was carved into handles for what?
Ceremonial daggers
Ceremonial daggers called jambiyas were the prize, and Yemen was the major source of demand for rhino horn through the 1970s and 1980s.
Q 26The western black rhinoceros, declared extinct in 2011, was last seen in the north of which country?
Cameroon
Cameroon held the last western black rhinos: only ten remained there in 2002, and a 2006 survey of their range failed to find a single one.
Q 27Which naturalist named the black rhinoceros in 1758, probably working from a doctored Indian rhino skull?
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus called it the double-horned rhinoceros, apparently from a one-horned Indian skull to which a collector had added a second horn.
Q 28Which country, home to Etosha National Park, holds Africa's largest free-roaming black rhino population?
Namibia
Namibia's black rhinos roam unfenced communal land in the arid north-west, where local conservancies earn tourist income from keeping them alive.
Q 29Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the largest black rhino sanctuary in East Africa, lies on the equator in which country?
Kenya
Kenya is home to Ol Pejeta, a cattle ranch turned wildlife conservancy that recorded the birth of its 100th black rhino in 2013.
Q 30In 2017, eastern black rhinos were moved to Akagera National Park, returning the species to which country?
Rwanda
Rwanda had lost its last black rhinos by 2007, so 18 animals were brought from South Africa, and five more later made a 30-hour journey from European zoos.