Indian Rhinoceros

The Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros unicornis - Linnaeus 1758) is a Rhinocéros unicorne present in Asia. It is largest and the least rare of the three species that account the continent. The species lives more particularly in the north of the India and the Nepal.

Formerly very widespread, the hunting and the development of agriculture involved the collapse of its population, which counted nothing any more but 100 to 200 animals at the beginning of the 20th century. Protected starting from 1910, the Indian rhinoceros could increase its population, which counts in approximately 2006: 2500 individuals.

Description

See also: Amorce=Pour a presentation of the various species of rhinoceros, their origins and their relations, to see the detailed article, Rhinoceros

The species does not have a identified Sous-espèce. IUCN defines 2 subpopulations however: an Eastern population, in Assam and with the Western Bengal, and a Western population with the Nepal and in Uttar Pradesh.

This rhinoceros of “prehistoric” appearance has a thick skin brown-silver plated, with enormous folds with the shoulders and the buttocks. The former legs and shoulders are covered with kinds of warts and the animal has hairs very short and dispersed on the body, forming a small tuft on the end of the tail.

In nature, the adult males are taller than the females. With a 370 cm length (maximum 380 cm) for the male apart from the tail (330 cm for the female), a height with the garrot of 180 cm, exceptionally 200 cm (160 cm for the female) and a weight going up to 2,7 tons (1,6 tons for the female), the Indian Rhinocéros constitutes largest of the three Espèce S of rhinoceros of Asia. In captivity, the males and the females reach weights much more important (up to 3,5 tons).

Males and females have a single horn, which one does not find on the young people. The horn, like the human hair, is in pure Kératine. It starts to appear towards the one year age. It reaches a length ranging between 20 and 61 centimetres (seldom more than 50 cm).

The Indian rhinoceros is a herbivore. He eats grass, fruits, sheets, plants watery, and even sometimes of the crop plants by the man. In the park Nepal board of Chitawan, a study of Laurie in 1978 showed that it consumed 183 species of plants, the herbaceous species accounting for 70 to 89% of its consumption. Its upper lip is prehensile and helps the animal to catch its food. The incisors to cut the plants are well developed.

Rhinoceros unicornis can run until a speed of 55 km/h, on short distances. Its legs in pillar have three fingers each one. It has excellent a Ouïe and a very good Odorat, but its sight is rather bad. The life expectancy is from 30 to 40 years, with a record recorded in 47 years captivity, in the south of the China and in Indo-China. The original population was estimated in a very approximate way at: 500000 animals at the 15th century. The Indian rhinoceros completely disappeared today from the Pakistan and the Bangladesh and became rare in India and with the Nepal.

In 2006, there remain approximately 2.400 to 2.500 live animals in freedom, without counting the animals captifs.
There was in 2000 612 animals listed with the Nepal, including 544 in the National park of Chitawan, a park of 932 km ², and 67 in the National park of Bardia (or Rhinoceros unicornis was reintroduced). A reintroduction is in hand in the National park of Sulkhlaphanta.

All the other animals (surroundings 1800) live in India. Thousand five hundreds, i.e. 60% of the current total population, live in the national park of Kaziranga (430 km ²) in Assam (extreme-is India) (situation in April 2005). Four hundred animals live in some other areas of India, in particular in the national parks of Manas (2837 km ²), Orang and Pabitora (85 animals with Pabitora in 2005), in Assam, but also of Gorumara and Jaldapara, with the Western Bengal. The number of the Indian rhinoceroses, which had strongly dropped, is today in slow increase thanks to the national parks where they are protected.

Lifestyle and reproduction

The Indian rhinoceros prefers the landscapes of Plaine S and open Marais with a low forest density. Forced to withdraw itself in front of the push of the men, certain Indian rhinoceroses however put themselves to live the Forêt. The Indian rhinoceroses are especially active in the evening, the night and early the morning.

From their adaptation to the marshy mediums, they are a species more attracted by water than their African cousins, and swim rather well. They like in particular the baths in the marshes, which have inter alia as a function coating them with a layer of mud protecting them from the parasites from the skin. Always within the framework of the fight against the external parasites, Rhinoceros unicornis accommodates readily on its back of the insectivorous birds ( Bubulcus ibis , Acridotheres tristis , of which there exist several varieties. Thanks to these interactions, the animals define their territories, and can normally only avoid thus their congeneric, male and female meeting to couple.

It is rare that the Indian rhinoceroses fight between them. However, the females with new-born babies show themselves particularly aggressive towards intruders of their own species, even towards the large males and the men. One also noted a tendency to the increase in the engagements between males (sometimes mortals) where the populations are densest.
La reproduction can take place all the year. The males can reproduce at nine years. The females reach sexual maturity with four or five years. The female whistles during its heats (all 21 to 42 days) so that the males know when they can join it. After the coupling, the Gestation lasts between 462 and 491 days (approximately 16 month). There is a birth approximately every 3 years.

The weight increases quickly, since the small one weighs approximately ten times its weight of birth at the one year age (at least in captivity, or the growths are definitely faster). It takes during the first times 2 to 3 kg per day (always in captivity). The young measure to nature surroundings 1 measures to 1 year (56 to 67 cm with the birth), 1,20 m at 2 years, 1,35 m at 3 years and 1,45 m at 5 years. The growths in weight and the faces recorded in the zoos are appreciably faster, because of more abundant food. A young male of the Zoo of Basle thus made 1,57 m at the 33 months age. Moreover, the Indian colonial government (British) granted a premium for each killed Indian rhinoceros, these animals being supposed to destroy the plantations of the.

Today, the Braconnage remains a major problem, since the horn of the Indian rhinoceros is used in the Far East in traditional medicine Chinese, like with the Yemen for the manufacture of the guards of traditional daggers (the jambia ) of the dominant classes. The paid prices are raised, especially for rather poor zones, so much so that a trafficker can gain until: 15000 dollars for only one horn passed in smuggling to China (the poachers themselves earn less money: in the surrounding of: 5000 dollars about 2000, according to the report/ratio of IUCN of 1997 quoting Martin (1995) and Menon (1996). Between 1998 and 2000, there still were at least 34 animals shot down only in the Nepalese park of Chitawan, or the situation however seems to improve since a reorganization,…). The too reduced size of these parks explains the regular tendency of the Indian rhinoceroses to leave their territories reserved to encroach on the human zones, devouring the cultures and involving conflicts with the farmers. These migrant animals are also more easily victims of the poachers, the patrols anti-poaching being fewer with external of the national parks.

| style=" padding-signal: 10px" | Evaluation of the demography of the species, drawn from various studies of time. The studies not having always been made according to same methodologies, the figures can vary one year on the other, without inevitably returning to a real evolution of the species. Studies compiled and sourcées here. The authors and the year of the studies are also posted by overflight of the figure in the table. |----- | align=" center" | |}

Today, the Indian rhinoceros is the Asian rhinoceros least rare, however, IUCN and the QUOTE still regard it as threatened.

Zoo

Rhinoceros unicornis interests the zoos for a rather long time. The impact on the populations wild, already very weak, was with the negative departure. The taking away in nature however ceased, and the zoos have populations of breeding today. For a few years, to avoid the problems of Consanguinity, certain zoos, in particular those of North America, have started contacts with the Nepalese national parks to get some wild couples.

Social representations of the Indian Rhinoceros

The Indian rhinoceros is largest Mammifère of the India, except for the Indian elephant. For this reason, he played an unquestionable part in the cultures of the north of the sub-continent.

Thus, in the culture pre-Indian of Indus (- 2600 to -1900 before J.C.), one finds the representation of a god with three faces, often compared to a proto- Shiva. “On both sides of the god are four animals, an elephant and a tiger on its line, an rhinoceros and a buffalo on its left”. The four animals thus represented are largest and most powerful of the north of India, and their association with a god shows clearly that their physical power is also a symbol of being able.

At more recent and better documented periods, the Indian rhinoceros remains associated with the gods. Its horn would thus have been given to him by Parvati, the woman of Shiva. For this reason, good number of beliefs make of him a creature crowned with the magic capacities.

One of the first Westerners to describe the animal is Nicolò of' Conti, an explorer of the 16th century which compares it to the Licorne.

Impressed by the animal, the Portuguese which discover India at the 16th century bring back specimens in Europe. The first will inspire a famous print on wood, engraved by Albrecht Dürer in the 1515, and called Rhinocéros To last. Work is based on a written description and a short sketch of an Indian rhinoceros brought to Lisbon earlier in the year, carried out both by an unknown artist. To last forever considering the real rhinoceros, first alive example seen in Europe since the Roman epoch. Towards the end of 1515, the king of Portugal, Manual Ier, sends the animal in present to the pope Leon X, but the animal dies in a shipwreck off the Italian coasts at the beginning of 1516. No rhinoceros in life will be re-examined in Europe until a second specimen arrives at Lisbon coming from India, in 1577.

It seems that old the Rajah S Indians punctually drew up rhinoceroses for the war. The latter also were sometimes drawn up for various more peaceful uses, for example like draft animals, at least at the time or they had not become very rare yet.

See also: Contenu=Pour more, one can consult the articles on ''' [[the rhinoceros in art]] ''' and the ''' [[famous rhinoceroses in Europe]] ''', knowing that they treat [[rhinoceros]] in general, and not specifically of '' Rinoceros unicornis ''.

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

Indian Rhino page International At Rhino Foundation website
Greater Indian Rhinoceros page At TheBigZoo.com
Indian Rhino page At AnimalInfo.org
Indian Rhino page At AmericaZoo.com
Indian Rhinoceros page At nature.ca
Indian Rhinoceros page At UltimateUngulate.com
reproduction of the Indian Rhinoceros in captivity

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