Field notes on the Black Rhino ... 'Swart renoster' 'Umkhombe'

These notes on this web page are from a pamphlet handed out to visitors to the Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Where are the rhino?

You would be very lucky to see one in daylight, but you may see signs that they are around.

Having three toes on each foot, rhino spoor (footprints) are easy to recognize. Try looking for rhinos at night, at the rest camp waterhole or on a night drive.

How heavy is a rhino?

A black rhino can weigh up to 1400 kg - that's about as much as 20 people!

Browsers

Black rhinos have a very mobile upper lip which they can use to strip branches clean of leaves. They are sometimes known as browse or hook - lipped rhinos, which  makes much more sense as they are not black, but grey.

Family life

Black rhinos are solitary. They leave their mother when they are sub - adult, then find their own home range where they spend the rest of their life. Rhino mark their territory with piles of dung.

Short - sighted

Rhinos have very poor eyesight, but make up for it with excellent senses of hearing and smell.

What are the horns for?

A rhino uses its horns to defend itself and for fighting. It may also use them to loosen soil around roots or to break off branches that are out of reach.

The black rhino has two horns which grow out from the skin - they are not attached to the skull. Many rhinos have been killed for their horns which are used to make dagger handles or for their supposed medicinal properties.

Did you know...?

A rhino 's horn is made from keratin , like our finger and toe nails.

How is the white rhino different?

The only other kind of rhino in Africa is the white rhino. It is a grazer, not a browser and has square, rather than pointed, lips for eating large amounts of grass.

Black rhino are very important

• Addo's unique flightless dung beetle eats rhino dung.
• By eating vegetation and producing dung, rhinos are recycling nutrients.

Culture and beliefs

In the past, Africans honoured the rhinoceros. It was protected from hunting by the belief that killing one would result in a curse on the killers that would extend to their wives, children, grandchildren and great - grandchildren

The mission of the Addo Elephant National Park is to conserve the faunal and floral assemblages and ecological processes that characterise the unique Eastern Cape region, and to actively present this for the appreciation by visitors.

click link below for larger mage

http://www.sanparks.org/parks/addo/images/maps/addomap2.jpg to see map of Addo Elephant National Park