White Rhinoceros

The white rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum ) is only Ceratotherium , one of the four kinds of Rhinocéros. The white rhinoceroses are in fact of gray color, a little clearer only that of the black Rhinocéros S, but their name is due to a curious error. At the 17th century, the first colonists Dutch made in South Africa called this animal widje , that is to say in their language “broad”, making allusion to their lip, right-hand side and broad, rather different from the lip in nozzle of the other African rhinoceros. The Britanniques, which were established with the Cape as from 1806, believed by error that they said white (white), English word to which the pronunciation is close. It is prickly to note that the error was taken again by Dutch (whose Afrikaans is only one alternative) and which one speaks there also white rhinoceros ( ).

Description

In fact, white rhinoceros and black rhinoceros presents same gray coloring. The length of the white rhinoceros (except tail) can go until 4 m, its height with the garrot is approximately 1,90 m and its weight goes from 2 up to 3 tons, which makes some largest of all the species of rhinoceros. It is distinguished from the black rhinoceros ( Diceros bicornis ) by its large pointed ears, its muzzle broad and shortened and a characteristic protuberance on the neck. It is also characterized some by the fact that it grazes grass, while the black Rhinocéros nourishes sheets and starts-up of tree; thus the two species can coexist within the same ecosystem. The sense of smell is at his place the most important direction; the ears and the eyes play on the contrary a secondary part. Like the black rhinoceros, it is hardly if it can recognize something with more than twenty meters.

Its horn is longest of all the rhinoceroses, it reaches on average 65 cm (exceptionally 1,50 m). Its principal function is to clear the obstacles at the time of the search of food.

Geographical location

The white rhinoceros meets in African savannas under two subspecies:

the white Rhinoceros of the South ( Ceratotherium simum simum ). Formerly, he lived in a belt going of the Angola and the Namibia to the Mozambique and with KwaZulu-Native while passing by the Zimbabwe and the Botswana. Today, one meets it in many reserves of South Africa. There would be in 2005 11.320 in nature, and 740 in captivity (or it reproduces).
a white Rhinocéros of North ( Ceratotherium simum cottoni ) was widespread in Congo and in Uganda to Chad and in Sudan. In Antiquity the Egyptians still found it in a wild state in the valley of the Nile. Today, it is probable that there do not even remain about it 25 specimens in the national park of Garamba in Democratic republic of Congo (ex-Zaire). One still finds some with the zoo of Dvur Králové in Czech Republic (six individuals) and with the park of wild animals of San Diego in California (three individuals). Unfortunately they reproduce with difficulty in captivity: since 1995 only one birth took place, that of a female with Dvur Králové.

Behavior and reproduction

Herbivore, the white rhinoceros prefers the places where it finds grass and small undergrowth. The lower lip has a horn edge which replaces the missing incisors and the assistance to brouter. Generally it is active in the twilight; and sleeps during the day.

The white rhinoceroses do not have a behavior as solitary as the other species of rhinoceros. However, the older males live as recluses in a field from 1 to 8 km ², than they defend against the other males and of which they continuously supervise the limits by marking them with their dejections and their urine; they also rub their bodies and their horns against the trees and the large rocks. However the serious battles are rare and take place at most to dispute the favors of a female. In their field besides they often tolerate the young people and the females. The coupling does not occur at a given period of the year but when the females finished raising their small, which occurs all the four or five years. Gestation lasts about seventeen months and the female puts generally low only one small, seldom two.

The young people meet in provisional groups and move sometimes with the females, if they do not have the small ones yet, but normally these last have one with them of them. Gestation lasts 16 month, then is born small, deprived of horns, of approximately 40 kg, which always move in front of the mother. Although as of two months it can start with brouter, she nurses it during approximately a year then drives out it with the birth again. At five years, the white rhinoceroses reach their sexual maturity; it is at this age that the females start to couple themselves, but it is only with more than ten years that the young males became enough strong to assert themselves against the older males and to conquer in their turn of the females.

White men and rhinoceroses

As the white rhinoceros is less aggressive than the black rhinoceros, one can approach him up to 10 m without it attacking. This is why it is rather easy to drive out.

In 1893 one believed the species of the South exterminated before one found in the Natal a small residual population from 10 to 20 animals (20 in 1885 according to IUCN). All the current white rhinoceroses go down from there. Since then, the population of the reserve of Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game increased regularly, passing from 1.000 heads in 1970 to 2.000 in 1980, to 4.000 in 1990 to reach in 2001 the figure of 11.000. Also the IUCN it now arranged the white rhinoceroses of the South among the almost saved species. 95% of all the white rhinoceroses living in freedom are on the territory of the South Africa; in addition, a group was introduced with the Kenya, where there had never been no white rhinoceros.

It is into 1903 that, for the first time, one scientifically described a white rhinoceros of North. They were then still numerous. The poachers succeeded in a few decades exterminating this population everywhere, except in the National park of Garamba where in 1963 thousand individuals still lived, severely protected. Unfortunately at that time the request for horns strongly increased because of the alleged medicinal virtues which allotted to him traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and with the vogue of the daggers in horn of rhinoceros in the higher classes of the Yemen, like marks standing and symbol of virility. As the purchasers of the Far East and Yemen were ready to pay insane sums for the horns exported in fraud, the poaching became a gainful employment in spite of the risk to be condemned. The relative political stability of South Africa allowed that the white rhinoceroses were protected effectively from the poaching, but the Zaire (thereafter Democratic republic of Congo) could nothing make the effective one. The civil war which since 1997 made rage made almost impossible the protection measures there. A counting in 2002 more found only 27 rhinoceroses white in the reserve of Garamba. According to the indications of the IUCN, the field is not currently threatened any more (2004) by the civil war and the gamekeepers can again act against the poachers; but as this situation can change from one moment to another, this subspecies is regarded as in great danger ( critically endangered ) and is at the edge of the extinction.

As the white rhinoceros of North is threatened by the reduction of its habitat and the poaching, and recently by the rebellion janjaweed with the Darfur, of the conservationists proposed in January 2005 to bring by airlift to Kenya the white rhinoceroses which remain in Garamba. There in spite of official approval obtained initially, one wanted to see an foreign interference in Congo, which pushed back the operation until the beginning of 2006.

The white rhinoceros is classified by QUOTE in appendix I (maximum protection), except the populations of South Africa and the Swaziland, which are classified in appendix II.

Source

In its actual position this article is a translation of the corresponding German article, with enrichments drawn from Wikipédias from languages English, Spanish and Dutchwoman.

Internal bonds

black Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros, vernacular name

External bonds

delivers IUCN to format pdf here

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