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| Latin name | Ceratotherium simum |
| Length | 3.6 –4.2m (12-14ft) |
| Height | 1.5-1.8m (5-6ft) |
| Weight | 2300-3600kg ( 5000-8000lb) |
| Gestation | 16 months |
| No. of young | 1 |
| Lifespan | 45 years |
White rhinos are found on the African savannah, plains or open grassland. They need clumps of trees or bushy areas to provide them with enough shade and cover. Rhinos are found where there is enough vegetation for them to feed off and they must also be near to water. White rhinos share their habitat with other grazers such as wildebeest, impala and zebra with whom they compete for food.
Rhinos are herbivores and they need to eat a great deal of plant material in order to maintain their enormous size. The majority of the food will be eaten at the beginning and the end of the day.
The rhino’s vegetarian diet means that it has no need for sharp incisor teeth. The white rhino has actually lost its front teeth entirely. Instead, rhinos grind the coarse plant material with their back teeth before swallowing.
Rhino courtship can be complicated and sometimes violent. The female charges at the approaching male. She will only mate when she has fought the male to the point of exhaustion. Rhinos tend to spend more than an hour mating, during which time the male is mounted on the female’s back.
Rhinos rarely give birth to more than one calf but white rhino twins have been observed. Births take place at any time of the year, although the majority take place at the beginning of the dry season. The mother will find some dense cover in which to give birth, but she has to keep an eye out for lions and hyenas. For the first couple of days the calf will suckle from its mother every hour or two, but only for two to three minutes at a time. Characteristics The rhino’s ears can be moved independently so when the rhino is eating or drinking, it can have one ear pointing forwards and one ear pointing backwards. This means it can listen out for any approaching predators.
A white rhino’s legs are built like pillars. The long bones tend to rest in a straight line, enabling the rhino to stand without exerting too much energy. Rhino horn is not made of horn but of thousands of tightly packed hairs known as keratin. The front horn of the southern white rhino can grow up to 2 metres (6.5ft).
Rhinos can actually run quite quickly for their size: up to 50km (30 miles) per hour. This is about the same speed as a horse, although rhinos cannot keep up this speed for very long. The white rhino has a broad, square-lipped mouth which helps it to take large bites of the short grass of the savannah.
Rhino horn and other body parts have been used in traditional oriental medicines for thousands of years. Sometimes the horn is powdered, sometimes thin shavings are boiled with herbs and sometimes it is mixed with other ingredients to make wax-coated pills. The second traditional use for rhino horn is for the ornate dagger handles of Yemen, in southern Arabia.
Commercial imports and exports of rhino horn, carvings or medicines have been illegal since about 1977, but the trade still carries on. In 1989, the decision was taken to de-horn the rhinos most at risk. It was hoped that this would help to protect the rhinos from poachers but sadly, even de-horned rhinos were still shot.
White rhino populations are still at risk and there is believed to be approximately 8,500 left in the wild. Their numbers have increased in recent years in protected areas of southern Africa.
- The word rhinoceros means ‘nose-horn’. This is appropriate as rhinos are the only animals with horns on their noses - all other horned animals have their horns on their heads.
- The white rhino’s name is not an accurate description of their colour, as they are light grey. It is believed that the name came from the Afrikaans word ‘weit,’ which means wide, referring to the shape of their mouth.
- What should you do if you are faced with an angry rhino? The temptation would be to run, but this might make matters worse. Some claim that it is better to face the beast and be ready to dive to one side!
- The young of the white rhino tend to trot along a few steps ahead of their mother. This is due to the fact that predators, such as hyenas, are likely to chase their prey from behind.