Rhinos
Rhinos are mammals. The name rhino comes from the Greek and means nose horn . Rhinos are so strong they can knock over an elephant. They have poor eye sight. Rhino horns consist of keratin (like our fingernails or hair).
Looks
Rhinos are about the size of a small truck but are a lot heavier. They have small piggy eyes and small ears, blackish grey, baggy, strong skin with no hair (except on their ears and tail). They have large heads, short necks, round bodies and short stumpy legs. The horns grow on their nose and can be 50 to 60 cm long or even bigger. Some species of rhinos have a hump on their back.
African rhino’s have two horns yet Indian rhino’s have one.
Rhinos look clumsy but in action they are not! They charge at top speed.
Food
Rhinos eat grass, leaves, twigs and shrubs. White rhinos eat grass with their special broad lips. Black rhinos eat bushes, twigs, branches and even thorn bush chomping off bits with their front teeth and mashing it up with their back teeth.
Rhinos eat lots of food. In the zoos, they eat 22 kgs of hay a day. In the wild, they eat all evening, all night and in the early morning.
Rhinos are herbivores.
They live not far from water holes and they like to wallow in the mud. Mud will keep rhino skin good.
White rhinos habitat is cool and dense grasslands with some bushes for shade. Black rhinos live in thorny bush country. All rhinos need to live near streams or waterholes. They enjoy a wallow in mud and it also keeps their skin protected. They live in Africa.
Why are they endangered?
Rhinos fight each other vigorously using their horns as a weapon. Poachers hunt down and kill rhinos for their horns which are used to make knife handles and Chinese medicine. There are very few rhinos left. There were 65000 in 1970 but now there are only 2500. They are dying out fast.
This page was created by Andrew, Michaela and Jamie