Who is it?
The White rhinoceros is the second largest terrestrial mammal on the planet. Despite its amazing size, it’s a very fast animal, capable of galloping at high speed and turning while running.
A solitary animal, it has horns which are its most terrible weapon. A horn which is, nevertheless, the reason why it is so desirable for hunters: popular beliefs attribute to it aphrodisiac properties. Fortunately, however, it’s a protected species (hunting it is currently banned).
It has good hearing and a good sense of small but poor eyesight. No African rhinoceros is really white, but rather grey. In the case of the white rhinoceros, the name derives from the word “wyt” (“white” in Afrikaans, which means “wide” and refers to the size of its lips and mouth). Males and females are practically the same, though the latter have longer and narrower horns.
Their range is the south and east of the African continent.
What are its habits?
One of its great pleasures is to have a mud bath. This acts to protect it from insect, as well as to regulate its temperature. That’s why it allows bird to ride on its back, so they may clear its tough hide, which lacks fur, of parasites.
It usually lives in dry, open forests, with good grazing land to be able to deed (on bulbs, grass and leaves, on which its diet is based).
A nocturnal animal, it is the most sociable of the rhinoceroses and gathers in mother-calf pairs or in herds of up to seven juveniles.
Pregnancy lasts 18 months and suckling a year (though the calf starts eating grass a few weeks after birth). The female re-enters heat two years later: that is when the calf is forced to leave, since the mother has to breed again.
Did you know…
The third white rhinoceros calf born through artificial insemination, in the world, was born at Madrid Zoo Aquarium.