This article by Franette Armstrong marks another installment in the "Gray Papers" addressing all things elephant, rhino and other African wildlife now endangered due to human behavior and culture.
Rhinos. What do most people know about one of Africa's "Big Five?" Here's a short quiz to test your rhino-savvy and maybe make you a bit of an expert in the process.
Ready? True or False?
Rhinos have horns.
False! We call them horns and they look sort of like horns, but really they aren't. A true horn is bone covered with a sheath of keratin. Rhino "horns" have no bone-y core and are only made of keratin which is basically dead protein cells like those that make up your callouses, nails and hair.
Here is a photo of some buffalo horns: true horns. The bony interiors have been removed so the keratin sheath stands alone:
Compare this cross-section of a poached rhino "horn" with the true horn above. As you can see, there's no bone inside; it is keratin all the way through.
Rhino Horns Have Magical or Healing Properties.
False! There are no magical properties in keratin! If you want keratin, you can just go to any hair salon and sweep the floor. Yet, rhino horns are more valuable than gold in Vietnam, the largest market today for poached rhino horns.
In China, drinking from a rhino-horn cup is thought to bring long life and enhanced virility. It's sad that even today people believe something that looks phallic will solve impotency.
All Rhinos have at least two horns.
False! All African and Sumatran rhinos have at least two horns but Indian and Javan rhinos have only one. Males and females are both horn-endowed, which is another reason it's ridiculous to think rhino horns improve virility.
You call a group of rhinos a¦
a) Crash
b) Herd
c) Both
d) Neither
The answer is C. You can call them a crash or a herd. Technically, though, rhinos are not herd animals.
One rhinoceros, two ___?
Rhinoceroses or rhinos! Unless you are a hunter or poacher, in which case you think of animals as a thing rather than a group of individuals and call a bunch of them rhino, lion, elephant, etc. Along the same lines, hunters call safaris game hunts or game drives. So do photographers and tourists, but animals are not game and this term should be dropped by them.
Rhinos are fierce carnivores.
False! Rhinos are peace-loving vegetarians. They mostly eat leaves, but can eat bark and branches if that's what is available.
Unlike elephants, rhinos aren't crucial to their ecosystem.
False! Researchers have proven that without rhinos all other animals that depend on grazing the plains suffer. With rhinos, the number and types of plants multiply. They give back nearly as much as they take, too, as the fiber in their food goes straight through and ends up as fertilizer.
Rhinos and elephants contend for "largest land animal" title.
False! Rhinos are the second largest land animal. The largest get to about 6600 pounds, about half the weight of the largest male African Elephants.
Here a young elephant makes friends with a rhino:
More learning fun about rhinos below the keratin squiggle!
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