The scientific name Rhinoceros unicornis is from Greek and Latin, and means, roughly, “one horn upon the nose.”
Rhinos have poor vision, and are extremely near-sighted, making them very dangerous and unpredictable and likely to charge unfamiliar sounds and smells.
Like horses, rhinos run and walk on their toes, and can run a surprising 28 to 35 miles per hour for short distances.
Physical Characteristics
The greater-one horned rhinoceros is the largest Asian rhino, and is also known as an Indian rhino. It is the largest land mammal after elephants, along with the African white rhino. Males weigh up to 5,000 pounds and females up to 3,500 pounds. Indian rhinos are characterized by skin folds that resemble armor plating and have wart-like bumps that cover the shoulder and upper leg region. They have a single blunt, somewhat stubby horn that sits on a bony knob and is composed of hardened, compressed keratin (hair-like) fibers.
Indian rhinos have a prehensile (grasping) upper lip that is flexible and is used to grasp bunches of grass in a browsing motion or can be tucked out of the way for grazing short grasses. Their excellent sense of smell and hearing gives rhinos information about their surroundings and help them detect danger.
Habitat/Diet
Indian rhinos range in the floodplains of large rivers, swampy and tall grass areas, reed beds, grasslands and wooded meadows of Nepal and Northeastern India.
They are herbivores and are grazers. In the wild, they primarily forage on tall, reedy grasses, but also eat short species of small amounts of aquatic plants, bushes, tree twigs and sprouts. At the Zoo, the Indian rhino is fed a diet of grain, hay, fruits, vegetables and acacia.
Social Behavior
The Indian rhino is usually solitary except for females with young. However, they’re territorial when it comes to sleeping places. Generally a short grunting charge is enough to settle a conflict but fights do occur and serious wounds can be inflicted by their sharp lower incisors.
Rhinos feed in open areas during the early morning and early evening hours. Midday to late afternoon they rest and wallow in muddy water. The buoyancy of the water makes it easier to support their huge weight and also protects them from heat, sunburn, parasites, and bloodsucking flies and keeps their skin supple. Late in the evening, after feeding, adults rest lying down.
Urine spraying of plants, foot-dragging tracks and dung heaps are important forms of communication. Rhinos mark their paths by secretions from a gland located above and behind the ball of their foot. Communal dung heaps near wallows and on public paths become enormous and act as an updated directory of animals in the area.
A calf is born after a 16-month gestation period, and will have all the skin-folds of an adult and a smooth plate on its nose where the horn will grow. Newborns gain 4 to 6 pounds daily and remain with their mother until shortly before the next birth.
Status In The Wild
Greater one-horned rhinos are holding their own through intensive conservation and management efforts in Nepal and India. However, the IUCN lists them as "Vulnerable." Estimations by the World Wildlife Fund number them at around 2,500. Poaching, poisoning and other problems still threaten the rhino. In Taiwan, rhino horn sells for $9,000 a pound and is the most sought after horn in the world by Asians. Though the use of substitutes for rhino horn is advocated by doctors, pharmacists and conservationists, populations of Chinese in overseas countries insist on using rhino horn as opposed to a substitute material such as water buffalo horn.
Other
All animals at the Zoo receive regular "behavioral enrichment" - a fancy word for toys and stimuli - and regular care from the veterinary staff. Gauhati wears down his horn on his own by rubbing it on the rocks in his enclosure but sometimes he needs help keeping it even. Our keepers and vet staff work together with Gauhati to file and trim his horn to keep it growing and healthy.
