Asian One-Horned Rhino

Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Rhinocerotidae
Genus and Species: Rhinoceros unicornis

A huge vegetarian that spends its days amid tall grasses and swampy wallows.

Physical Description: Very large, brownish gray, with plate-like pleats to their thick skin, greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses are built somewhat like tanks with skinny, short legs. Their hearing and sense of smell are acute, but these animals have poor vision and cannot see a non-moving animal 100 feet away. Present in both males and females, but not newborn young, the distinctive horn is made of keratin--the same protein that forms fingernails and the covering of cow horns.

Size: Males are noticeably larger than females, standing five and a half to six feet tall, weighing up to 5,000 pounds, and reaching up to 12 feet long.

Geographic Distribution: Greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses once ranged from Pakistan across northern India to Nepal, Bhutan, and the border with Myanmar (Burma), and perhaps ranged even further, into southern China. Today, they are confined to a few small, protected populations totaling about 2,000 animals. Most live in several parks in India and in Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park.

Status: The greater one-horned Asian rhinoceros is listed as endangered on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Animals.

Habitat: Greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses inhabit floodplain grasslands and adjacent forests and swamps. Today, in their restricted range, these animals sometimes feed in cultivated fields and pastures.

Diet: Strict vegetarians, greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses mainly eat grasses, but they also consume leaves, fruit, branches, and farm crops.

Reproduction: Females reach breeding age at five years and bear their first calves at between six and eight. Single calves are born at intervals of about three years. Males can breed at nine years old but due to competition from older males, many don't mate until they are about ten years old.

Life Span: In zoos, greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses have lived up to 47 years; longevity in the wild is shorter.

Behavior: Greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses generally travel alone, feeding under the dense cover of tall grass or trees, and spending hours wallowing in mud, an activity that keeps biting flies at bay. Females and their young travel together, and sometimes a few rhinoceroses will share the same feeding or wallowing areas. Males are territorial.

Past/Present/Future: Greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses have drastically declined since the early part of the 20th century, as their riparian (river-side) grasslands were replaced by farmland. Trophy hunting and a bounty placed on rhinoceroses by tea growers (the animals chewed their crops) pushed them to the brink of extinction. Today, the biggest problems are that very little prime habitat remains and poachers shoot the animals for their horns and other parts, which are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In recent years, the greater one-horned Asian rhinoceros population has been growing slowly, thanks to habitat and protection programs in places like Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park.

A Few Greater One-horned Asian Rhinoceros Neighbors:

Tiger (Panthera tigris): At the top of the forest food chain, this mighty, endangered cat slinks through the shadows in some of the parks where greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses live.

Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus): These giants share some of the same habitat. Tamed elephants carry tourists close to wild rhinoceroses, which are not panicked by the pachyderms' presence.

Hornbills (several species in the rhino's range): These flashy birds with large, strong beaks are important forest seed dispersors.

Fun Facts:

Greater one-horned Asian rhinoceroses are the second largest of five rhino species. The largest is Africa's white rhino (Ceratotherium simum), which can weigh up to 8,000 pounds and stands about six inches taller.

The name rhinoceros comes from the Greek words for "nose-horn" (rhino-ceros). Rhinoceroses are the only mammals with horns on their noses rather than on top of their heads.

The rhino family's origins stretch back 60 million years--to five million years after the reign of the dinosaurs.