Rhinos
By Zoe and Matt
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, THERE WERE 500,000 RHINOS LEFT IN THE WILD. TODAY, THERE ARE ONLY 29,000.
CLASSIFICATION
Nicknamed the rhino
scientific name: Rhinocerotidae
Kingdom: Animalia
Class: Mammalia
Order: Perissodactyla
ANATOMY
DID YOU KNOW?
BEHAVIOUR
Rhinos are mainly solitary animals except for mating. Rhino babies are born weighing around 40 kg, and after 10 minutes are already standing up. They are born without horns, so rely completely on their mothers for protection. They stay with their mother until the next baby is born, when they are around 3 years of age.
Rhinos live 35-40 years in the wild, but most reach around 50 in captivity. A group of rhinos is called a 'crash'.
Rhinos mark territory by walking through their own feces and spraying urine. Each rhino gives off its own unique smell to the other rhinos.
It may sound gross, but for them its just the same as updating their Facebook profile.
HABITAT
DIET
JAVAN RHINOCEROS
It has one horn which grows to about 20 cm, the smallest horn of all the rhinoceros species. The longest horn recorded on a Javan Rhinoceros was 27 cm.
Scientific Name: Rhinoceros sondaicus
INDIAN RHINOCEROS
Scientific name: Rhinoceros unicornis
SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS
The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest of all the rhinos and is the only Asian rhino with two horns. Young adult Sumatran rhinos are covered with reddish brown fur that turns dark and bristley with age. Of all the rhino subspecies, the Sumatran rhino is the most closely related to the extinct wooly rhinos, and also the most threatened with only 100 left alive in the world. The Sumatran rhino eats fruit, (especially wild mangoes and figs), bark, twigs and leaves.
Scientific name: Dicerorhinus sumatrensis
BLACK RHINOCEROS
The Black rhino is critically endangered with roughly 5000 left alive in the world thanks to mans greed for the rhino horn. Black rhinos have two horns, the longer reaching around 50cm. The male rhino's longer horn is generally thicker then the females, which is long and slim.
The black rhino was name so to distinguish it from the white rhino, although neither of them are the colour as their name suggests. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip which they use to eat fruit and leaves from trees and bushes. It's shoulder stands 1.4 - 1.8 meters tall and it can reach speeds up to 45 km/h in short bursts.
There are four subspecies of black rhino, one of which was declared extinct in november, 2011.
Scientific name: Diceros Bicornis
WHITE RHINOCEROS.
The name 'White Rhinoceros' is thought to be a confusion with the Afrikaans word 'wyd,' meaning wide, which is a popular theory because they are not at all white as their name suggests, but grey, as is the Black rhinoceros. The white rhino, as well as the Indian Rhino, is the largest subspecies of rhinoceros, and the second largest mammal on earth after the asian and african elephant.
Unlike the Black Rhino who has a pointed lip, White Rhinos have a sqaure lip which helps them to eat long grassess. White Rhinos keep their heads lowered for most of the day, whether most other rhinos need to lift their heads to reach trees and tall bushes.
The white rhino has two subspecies, the southern white rhino and the northern white rhino. In 2007, the southern white rhino had a rough population of 17,480, and was the most common rhino subspecies in the world. The northern white rhino, however, had a total population of 4 in the wild, and as few as 12 in captivity.
Scientific name: Ceratotherium simum