Not everything about rhinos is black and white!

DID YOU KNOW:

...there are FIVE species of rhinoceros on the planet (for now), and only two of them are African?

Asia is home to the Indian, or Greater One-Horned, rhino which is almost the same size as the African white rhino and has an armour-coated appearance. The Javan, or Lesser One-Horned, rhino has a similar armour-coated appearance but is much smaller. And the small Sumatran rhino has a reddish hairy coat that is reminiscent of creatures from a bygone era!

The two African rhino species are the Black, or Hook-Lipped, rhino and the White, or Square-Lipped, rhino. Their common names have absolutely nothing to do with their colour as both species are a very similar shade of grey, although there is one theory about the origins of their common names that had something to do with historical geographic ranges and their love of mud wallowing. The suggestion was that White rhinos naturally occurred in areas with calciferous soils, and Black rhinos more clay/ loamy soils, which would influence their body colouration after extensive mud wallowing. Another early theory was that the word 'white' originated from the old Dutch word 'wijd' meaning wide, as in the wide-mouthed rhino.

The most distinguishable feature between Black and White rhinos, if they are not standing close enough for a size comparison (the White rhino is bigger), is their mouth. The Black rhino has a pointy prehensile upper-lip (if you look very closely at the photo below of my only Black rhino encountered thus far) for browsing, that is hooking around tree branches and pulling off the leaves.

 

Whereas the White rhino (below) has a wide, flat upper-lip for grazing and cropping grasses off the ground. White rhinos have become known as 'Ecosystem Engineers' due to their grazing opening up shorter grazing lawns for other species not capable of eating the long grasses.

 

So very often, you can determine which species you are looking at from the habitat surrounding them and their feeding behaviour. The White rhino also has a very noticeable humped back (see photo below), for supporting the weight of the head as it is mostly grazing at ground level, whereas the Black rhino will generally hold its head upright.