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Rhinoceros unicornis

(Rhinoc?ros Unicorne De L'Inde)

Overview

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Vulnerable

Threat status

Interesting Facts

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Common Names

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Click on the language to view common names.

Common Names in English:

Great Indian One-horned Rhinoceros, Great Indian Rhinoceros, greater Indian rhinoceros, Greater One-horned Rhino, Indian Rhinoceros

Common Names in French:

Rhinoc?ros Unicorne De L'Inde, Rhinocéros unicorne de l'inde

Common Names in Russian:

Носорог индийский, панцирный

Common Names in Spanish:

Rinoceronte Unicornio ?ndico, Rinoceronte unicornio índico

Description

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Physical Description

Species Rhinoceros unicornis

Indian rhinos on average are about 3-7 feet tall and 7-14 feet long. They usually weigh about 3,300-4,400 pounds . Their skin is dark gray in color and it falls into distinct folds at the joints of the shoulders . The skin gives an appearance of protective armor . It has one single horn that is stubby and blunt . This horn is usually ragged in older animals. The horn is made out of hair-like fibers called keratin that are clumped together above a bony knob on top of the skull.

Size/Age/Growth

Indian Rhinos are one of the largest living land mammals in the world. Adult males can stand over 6 feet tall at the shoulder and weight over 3,300 lbs . The longest Rhino horn on record is over 5 feet in length .

Habitat

Dense jungles and wetlands in refuges and national parks in India and Nepal. Rhinos live in tall elephant grass in swampy places near rivers . They wallow in the shallow water and the mud to cool off frequently during the day. They also go to land that is higher up so they can search for food.

Ecology: The species inhabits the riverine grasslands of the Terai and Brahmaputra Basins (Foose and van Strein 1997). The species prefers these alluvial plain grasslands, but was known to occur in adjacent swamps and forests . The populations are currently restricted to habitats surrounded by human-dominated landscapes, so that the species often occurs in adjacent cultivated areas, pastures, and secondary forests. The diet includes mainly grasses, but also some fruit, leaves, shrub and tree branches, and cultivated crops (Nowak, 1999). The species also utilizes mineral licks regularly. Males are solitary, with unstructured, overlapping territories. The females solitary unless occurring with young.

Its life history characteristics are not well known, with longevity estimated at about 30-45 years, gestation length of approximately 16 months (as with other rhino species), and age at sexual maturity estimated at 5-7 years for females and 10 years for males (Nowak, 1999; IRF website, 2006).[1].

List of Habitats:

Biology

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Diet

Rhinos are grazing animals with a varied diet . They like to eat elephant grass , twigs , bamboo shoots , and water hyacinths. They also like to eat the crops and this makes them a problem for the local farmers. The crops they like to eat are wheat, lentils, and potatoes.

Rhinos have a prehensile lip that they use to tear leaves off branches.

Reproduction

The male rhino reaches sexual maturity in 7-9 years. The female rhino reaches sexual maturity in 3 years. The female rhino is ready to mate for twenty-four hours every 5-8 weeks. She attracts the male rhino by spraying her urine around her territory. She also makes gentle whistling sounds to call his attention. The females stay pregnant for 462-489 days. The female looks for dense cover when it is time to give birth to the calf . Rhinos are mammals that only give birth to one calf.

Behavior

They are very territorial and usually live in isolation even from their own kind. The only exception is that they do share bathing pools , wallows, and dug heaps. They make their feeding and sleeping areas their own. If any other animal tries to enter their territory then the Indian rhino will charge after it to make it go away. In the morning the rhinos feed in open areas, they gradually move towards shade as the sun rises . They spend most of the day wallowing together. Towards the evening they move back to feeding areas and graze until it is time for them to rest. Females with rhino calves move to places where tall grass grows to protect young from predators . The bigger rhinos are too large to fear predators so they usually lie where they are feeding.

Taxonomy

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Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 22-Apr-2004

Similar Species

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Unlike the African Rhino, which has two horns, the Indian Rhino has only one horn.

Members of the genus Rhinoceros

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 3 species and subspecies in this genus:

R. sondaicus (Javan Rhinoceros) · R. sondaicus sondaicus (Javan Rhinoceros) · R. unicornis (Great Indian One-Horned Rhinoceros)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal February 29, 2008:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Talukdar, B.K., Emslie, R., Bist, S.S., Choudhury, A., Ellis, S., Bonal, B.S., Malakar, M.C., Talukdar, B.N. & Barua, M. 2008. Rhinoceros unicornis. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 04 February 2012. [back]
Last Revised: 7/14/2012