Rhinoceros

The rhinoceros (IPA: /raɪˈnɒsərəs/), or rhino, is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia. more...

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One of the five species is endangered, and another, the Indian Rhinoceros, is endangered.

The family is characterised by large size (one of the few remaining megafauna surviving today) with all of the species capable of reaching one ton or more in weight; herbivorous diet; and a thick protective skin, 1.5-5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure; relatively small brains for mammals this size (400-600g); and its horn. The rhino is prized for its horn. The horns of a Rhinoceros are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair, but the horn is not itself made of hair as some have believed. Rhinoceros also have acute hearing and sense of smell, but poor eyesight. Most rhinoceros live to be about 50 years old or more. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceros is "crash".

Both African species and the Sumatran Rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan Rhinoceros have a single horn.

Taxonomy and naming

The word "rhinoceros" (ρινόκερος) is derived from the Greek words rhino, meaning nose, and kera, meaning horn; hence "horned-nose". The plural can be rhinoceros, rhinoceri, rhinoceroses, or rhinoceroi. A group of rhinos is called a crash.

The five living species fall into three categories. 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 mouths. 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, or rather a corruption of the word wijd (wide in Afrikaans) because of their square lips. White Rhinoceros are divided into Northern and Southern subspecies. 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. The critically endangered Sumatran Rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (about 20 million years ago). The extinct Woolly Rhinoceros of northern Europe and Asia was also a member of this tribe.

A subspecific hybrid white rhino (Ceratotherium s. simum × C. s. cottoni) was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo (Zoological Garden Dvur Kralove nad Labem) in the Czech Republic in 1977. Interspecific hybridisation of Black and White Rhinoceros has also been confirmed .

Read more at Wikipedia.org