Habitat:
Description:
Physical Adaptations:
Learned Behaviors:
Instincts:
Diet:
- The white rhino lives in savannas, which have water holes, mud wallows, shade trees, and the grasses they graze on.
Description:
- White rhinoceroses are actually gray.
- White rhinos have two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet long.
- They have massive bodies, short necks, and broad chests.
- Males are slightly heavier than females.
- They have a noticeable muscular hump on the back of the neck which supports the large head.
- The head is very long and carried low to the ground.
- They have two medial horns on the snout, one behind the other, the front horn being longer.
- They have very little hair except for ear fringes, eyelashes, and tail bristles with a few hairs intermittently scattered on the body.
- They have short thick legs that end on broad three-toed feet.
- They have very thick skin.
Physical Adaptations:
- White rhinos have a distinctive flat broad mouth which is used for grazing. The wide upper lip is very flexible.
- The ears are long, and they pivot freely which helps them to hear. Their ears can rotate independently of each other allowing the rhinos to hear in two different directions at the same time.
- They have poor eyesight and rely on their keen sense of smell to locate food and their sense of hearing to locate predators.
- The combination of their sharp horns and immense bulk helps to protect the mammals from predators.
- Under the hot African sun, white rhinos take cover by lying in the shade.
- Rhinos are also wallowers. They find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sunblock. Wallowing helps them cool their bodies down.
- Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
- Rhinos are generally active in the early morning, late afternoon, and evening. During the middle of the day, they wallow or rest in the shade.
- Since it cannot sweat, it rolls in mud or dust to keep cool.
- Aside from a mother with a calf, rhinos tend to be solitary.
- Males are very territorial and mark the boundaries by spraying urine, spreading dung, dragging their feet and damaging vegetation.
- They will charge when they feel threatened. When attacking, the rhino lowers its head, snorts, breaks into a gallop reaching speeds of 30 miles an hour, and gores or strikes powerful blows with its horns.
- Rhinos are known to communicate with grunts, snorts, snuffs and occasionally whistles.
Learned Behaviors:
- The mother rhino will teach her baby how to graze.
Instincts:
- Mother rhinos have fierce maternal instincts, and in the wild, they develop a close bond with their young. In fact, a baby rhino may stay with his mother for two or three years, during which time the mother grants him protection from potential threats.
- Baby rhinos are born knowing to drink their mother's milk.
- Baby rhinos are born knowing how to stand and walk.
Diet:
- White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the groun
- Rhinos are herbivores or plant eaters.
- White rhinos are grazers, feeding entirely on grasses that they crop with their wide front lip. Their short legs, long head reaching almost to the ground, and wide mouth are used in combination with a side to side head movement to eat massive quantities of grass.
- It drinks twice a day if water is available, but if conditions are dry it can live four or five days without water.
- It spends about half of the day eating.