text x_quick_Title2=Class: Mammalia~Order: Perissodactyla~Family: Rhinocerotidae
text x_quick=Where In the World~` There are probably less than 2,500 black rhinos in the wild, and another 150 in captivity outside Africa.~` In 1970, there were an estimated 65,000 black rhinos. By 1980 the estimates had fallen to about 15,000.~` In recent years, black rhinos have been found in several African countries along the south and western portions of the continent, including Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, and Rwanda.~` In the past, before rhinos were endangered, they were found throughout eastern and southern Africa, as far north as north-eastern Sudan, and at least as far west as north-eastern Nigeria.~ ~Take a Look!~` Black rhinos are 10 to 12 feet long, with tails that are about two feet long.~` They stand about four to six feet tall at the shoulder, and weigh between 1,750 and 3,000 pounds!~` They have two horns - the front one is larger than the back one, and is usually around 20 inches long.~` They have thick skin with few hairs - it's draped and wrinkled, and looks a lot like a suit of armour.~ ~All in the Family~` There are several other kinds of rhinoceros, most endangered. The black rhino's relatives are the Sumatran (or hairy) rhino, the Asian one-horned rhino (which includes the Javan rhino and the great Indian rhino), and the white rhino.~ ~Just the Facts~` Rhinos get to know their rhino neighbours, and often two or three rhinos will travel and eat together - groups of up to 13 have been spotted. Mothers and their calves are very close, but adult males often prefer to be alone.~` Rhinos often gather together at a watering hole or mud wallow. Rolling in mud keeps flies off their skin, cools them down, and may act as a sort of sunscreen - rhino skin can burn just like yours can!~` Rhinos are vegetarians - they eat plants. They prefer the small, new twigs from many different plants. Some biologists think the acacia plant is the rhino's favourite.~` Rhinos usually give birth during the rainy season, when food is plentiful. The calf weighs about 90 pounds at birth, and will stay with its mother for two or three years.~` Rhinos face many threats in the wild - it's hard to know how long they'd live if they were left alone. One rhino in captivity lived to be 45 years old.
;Habitat
text x_hab= Black rhinos are found in small numbers in several countries in Africa, mostly in the southern and western regions.~ They like a habitat that includes both sunny grasslands and shady, open forests. With their tough, thick skin, they think nothing about pushing their way right through heavy thorn bush thickets to find some good twigs to eat. It takes more than thorns to rip a rhino's durable skin!~\
The most important aspect of a rhino's habitat is a permanent source of water. In many parts of Africa, some streams - even some rivers - dry up in the hot summer months, they only have water during the rainy season. But rhinos can't wait for the rainy season. They need water not just to drink but also for cool mud wallows. So they have to stay near areas with water that can make it through the dry season. They generally won't go more than 15 miles away from water.
;Food
text x_eat= Black rhinos look like big, fearsome beasts, and they can be dangerous because they're unpredictable. But rhinos don't charge at other animals or humans because they're hungry - the mighty rhinoceros is a vegetarian. It eats twigs and stems from many different plants. The acacia plant is apparently very tasty to the rhino, and many black rhinos stand all day in acacia thickets, moving slowly in the heat and munching on vegetation, particularly tender, new twigs. ~\
The upper lip of the black rhino comes to a sort of point in the middle. That point is very muscular - the rhino uses it as a grabber, wrapping it around the plant it wants to eat and pulling the twig or stem into its mouth to be bitten off. Your upper lip (and your lower one, too) is muscular and can grab things - like a straw when you want a drink. Your lip doesn't come to a point like a rhino's does, but if you think about it, your lip muscles are as useful to you as a rhino's are to the rhino! ~\
Rhinos have wide, flat teeth that crush and crunch the plants they eat. Most plant-eaters have similar teeth, while a meat-eating animal has sharp teeth that can be used to hold onto something or to rip. Humans eat both plants and meat. That's why you have two different kinds of teeth - sharp one in front to hold and rip, and wide, flat ones in back to crush and crunch.
;Habits and Characteristics
text x_life= Wouldn't you think that black rhinos would be black and white rhinos would be white? Well, it's one of those unfair tricks of the language - both kinds of rhinos are pretty much the same colour. (Black rhinos are a little darker, but not a whole lot.) It turns out that in Afrikaans, a language based on Dutch (and sharing a lot of roots with English), the word "weit" means "wide." A white rhino has a square upper lip, so Afrikaaners called it the weit rhino - that became "white" rhino while no one was looking. The black rhino, which does actually have fairly dark brown skin, has a different kind of upper lip - it comes to a sort of point in the middle. That's the easiest way to tell a black rhino from a white rhino - by the upper lip.~ \
Colour isn't a good way to tell them apart, because all rhinos love to roll around in the mud, so they're usually the same colour as the dirt in the area. If there's a lot of clay in the soil, you get a "red" rhino! Black rhinos visit their mud "wallows" often - having a coat of mud keeps the flies off. Rhinos have sensitive skin - it looks like a suit of armour, and it's very dense, but the itch from a bug bite is just as annoying to a rhino as it is to you! And rhino skin can get a sunburn, too, so the mud is the black rhino's form of sunblock. Finally, a mud wallow is a delicious thing for these big beasts because it gets very hot in their part of Africa, and rolling around in a big mud puddle is a great way to cool off. Sometimes black rhinos sleep in their mud wallows! The mud holes are social places - it's where the rhinos meet up with their neighbours.~ \
Rhinos don't live in family groups as we do, but they do have a sort of community "clan." They recognise their neighbours and frequently gather together in small groups to browse for tasty, tender twigs. Mothers often have a new calf with them - if her offspring is a female, the daughter may stay with her mother for several years. (Males often prefer solitude - mum probably parted from her son when he was two or three.) Adult females without calves wander together, and groups of as many as 13 can gather together at a mud wallow without anyone feeling crowded. Rhinos are only unfriendly to other rhinos when they aren't part of the clan.~\
A rhinoceros doesn't have good eyes, but it can hear very well, and its sense of smell is excellent. In fact, rhinos gather most of their information by smell (just~as you gather your information based on what you see). That's how a rhino identifies members of its own clan - they smell "right," or familiar. Anything that doesn't smell right puts the rhino on the alert - and anything that is 12 feet long and weighs 3,000 pounds should be treated with respect when it's on the alert! One of the smells that makes black rhinos nervous is the smell of humans. Rhinos have been known to charge cars and jeeps, or run at camp fires. But careful scientists can stand in plain sight within 60 to 70 feet of a rhinoceros - if they get there without the rhino sensing their movement, and if they're downwind of the animal (so they can't be smelled), the rhino won't really even know they're there - it will go on munching plants without concern.~\
Because their part of the world is so hot, rhinos tend to sleep or rest in the middle of the day - they're most active in the cooler hours just after dawn and just before sunset. Humans, on the other hand, are generally active all day
