Rhinoceros
All rights reserved.
No publication without written permission of the photographer.
Location: Botswana
Photographer: © Pia Dierickx
The white rhino's name derives from the Dutch "weit," meaning wide, a reference to its wide, square muzzle adapted for grazing. The white rhino, which is actually grey, has a pronounced hump on the neck and a long face.
The Black Rhino: the black or hooked-lipped rhino, along with all other rhino species, is an odd-toed ungulate (three toes on each foot). It has a thick, hairless, grey hide. Both the black and white rhino have two horns, the longer of which sits at the front of the nose.
Black Rhino: 1 to 1½ tons. White Rhino: over 2 tons.
Grassland and open savannahs. Black rhinos have various habitats, but mainly areas with dense, woody vegetation. White rhinos live in savannas with water holes, mud wallows and shade trees.
The black rhino is a browser, with a triangular-shaped upper lip ending in a mobile grasping point. It eats a large variety of vegetation, including leaves, buds and shoots of plants, bushes and trees.
The white rhino is a grazer feeding on grasses.
They have an extended "vocabulary" of growls, grunts, squeaks, snorts and bellows.
When attacking, the rhino lowers its head, snorts, breaks into a gallop reaching
and gores or strikes powerful blows with its horns. Still, for all its bulk, the rhino is very agile and can quickly turn in a small space.
The rhino has a symbiotic relationship with oxpeckers, also called tick birds. In Swahili the tick bird is named "askari wa kifaru," meaning "the rhino's guard." The bird eats ticks it finds on the rhino and noisily warns of danger. Although the birds also eat blood from sores on the rhino's skin and thus obstruct healing, they are still tolerated.
Young are born after a gestation period of 16 months. (www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/wildlife_rhino.htm)
No publication without written permission of the photographer.
Location: Botswana
Photographer: © Pia Dierickx
The white rhino's name derives from the Dutch "weit," meaning wide, a reference to its wide, square muzzle adapted for grazing. The white rhino, which is actually grey, has a pronounced hump on the neck and a long face.
The Black Rhino: the black or hooked-lipped rhino, along with all other rhino species, is an odd-toed ungulate (three toes on each foot). It has a thick, hairless, grey hide. Both the black and white rhino have two horns, the longer of which sits at the front of the nose.
Black Rhino: 1 to 1½ tons. White Rhino: over 2 tons.
Grassland and open savannahs. Black rhinos have various habitats, but mainly areas with dense, woody vegetation. White rhinos live in savannas with water holes, mud wallows and shade trees.
The black rhino is a browser, with a triangular-shaped upper lip ending in a mobile grasping point. It eats a large variety of vegetation, including leaves, buds and shoots of plants, bushes and trees.
The white rhino is a grazer feeding on grasses.
They have an extended "vocabulary" of growls, grunts, squeaks, snorts and bellows.
When attacking, the rhino lowers its head, snorts, breaks into a gallop reaching
and gores or strikes powerful blows with its horns. Still, for all its bulk, the rhino is very agile and can quickly turn in a small space.
The rhino has a symbiotic relationship with oxpeckers, also called tick birds. In Swahili the tick bird is named "askari wa kifaru," meaning "the rhino's guard." The bird eats ticks it finds on the rhino and noisily warns of danger. Although the birds also eat blood from sores on the rhino's skin and thus obstruct healing, they are still tolerated.
Young are born after a gestation period of 16 months. (www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/wildlife_rhino.htm)