Happy World Rhino Day!

Hey Jammer's! CoolCat here with another post! And Today is World Rhino Day! I will be sharing 25 Rhino fact's with you! Here are the fact's!

1.  There are 5 different specie's of Rhino's! Three are from Southern Asia and two are from Africa. There are the Black Rhinoceros, White Rhinoceros, Indian Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros, and the Sumatran Rhinoceros.

2. The name Rhinoceros mean's ''Nose Horn'' and is often shortened to Rhino. It come's from the Greek word's Rhino (nose) and ceros (horn).

3. The White Rhinoceros is the second largest land mammal! The White Rhino is the largest Rhino specie's and can weigh over 7,700 pound's and is the largest land mammal after the Elephant. Elephant's can grow to be 15,000 pound's!

4. Rhino's can grow to be over 6 feet tall and 11 feet in length.

5. Three of the five Rhino species are listed as being critically in danger. The Black Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros, and the Sumatran Rhinoceros are all critically in danger which mean's they have a 50% chance of being extinct in 3 generations.

6. Rhinoceros have thick, sensitive skin. Rhino's skin maybe thick but it can be quite sensitive to sunburn's and insect bite's which is why they wallow so much - when the mud dries it acts as protection from sunburns and insect's.

7. Relative to their large body size, Rhinoceros have small brain's. But this does not mean they are stupid.

8. Rhinoceros horns are made from a protein called keratin, the same substance that fingernails and hair are made of. The Rhino's horn is not a bone and is not attached to its skull; it is also not hollow like an Elephant's tusk. It is actually a compacted mass of hairs that continues to grow throughout the animal's lifetime, just like our own hair and nails. The longest horn on a Black Rhino was 4 feet 9 inches long. (They average about 20 inches in length on a Black Rhino)

9. Some Rhino's use their teeth - not horns - for defense. When a greater one-horned Rhino is threatened it slashes and gouge's with it's long, sharp incisors and canine teeth of its lower jaw.

10. Rhinoceros are herbivores. (Plant Eaters) They must eat a lot to fill their large bodies!

11. A group of Rhinoceros is called a ''herd'' or a ''crash''.

12. Despite their name, White and Black Rhinoceros are actually grey. The White Rhino's name is taken from the Africans word ''weit'', which means ''wide'' and describes its mouth. Early English settlers in South Africa misinterpreted the ''weit'' for ''white''. Black Rhino's probably get their name from the dark wet mud in their wallows that made then appear black in color. Both species are essentially grey in color.

13. The closest living Rhino ''relatives'' are tapirs horses and zebras. They are part of a group of mammals called odd-toed ungulates.

14. Rhino's are speed machines. They can run up to 30 to 40 mph (Miles Per Hour). The fastest human can only run 15 mph. So I wouldn't try to outrun a Rhino!

15. Rhino Pregnancies last for a long time! They are pregnant for 15-16 months! Mother Rhino's are very nurturing. They stay with their young for 3 years.

16. Rhino's have poor eyesight, but very well developed senses of olfaction (smell) and hearing. A rhino has difficulty detecting someone standing only a few hundred feet away if the individual remains still. Hey, That's just like a T-Rex! Okay back to rhinos. However, if the person makes the faintest sound or the rhino is able to smell the person, it will easily detect him, even at much greater distances. The olfaction portion is the largest area in the rhinos brain.

17. African rhinos are a good ''home'' for oxpeckers. The oxpecker eats ticks and other insects that it finds on the rhino, and creates a commotion when it senses danger. This helps alert the rhino.

18. Rhinos communicate by doing a poo! Rhinos use pile's of dung to leave ''messages'' for other rhinos. Each rhinos smell is unique and identifies its owner. It can also tell a rhino if the other rhino is young/old/male/ or female. They also tell other rhinos this is their territory.

19. Rhinos are over 50 million years old. They have not changed much since the prehistoric times (though of course they tended to be a lot woollier back then!) Some of the first rhinos didn't have horns and once roamed throughout North American or Australian continents.

20. The Sumatran rhino is the closest living relative of this ancient extinct woolly rhino. These rhinos had thick, shaggy coats and were hunted by early humans and are depicted in cave paintings dating back more than 30,000 years ago.

21. What you eat matters. The Black rhino has a hooked lip which allows it to feed on trees and shrubs. The white rhino has a long, flat upper lip perfect for grazing on grasses. The upper lips of the three Asian rhino species allow the animals to browse vegetation in tropical forest habitats.

22. The Javan rhino is the worlds rarest land mammal. Less then 50 individuals survive in Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park, this is the only population and none exist in zoos.

23. Not all rhinos are solitary creatures. White rhinos commonly live in extended family groups, particularly females and their calves, can sometimes be seen in large numbers. The greatest concentration or densities, however, appear to be those of greater one-horned rhinos in India's Kaziranga National Park, where visitors can typically see more than a dozen individuals at one time and as many as 50 in a single day!

24. Rhino horn is used in traditional Asian medicine. Powdered rhino horn is commonly used to reduce heat from the body for things like fever; it is wrongly believed to have detoxifying qualities.

25. Fighting rhinos. Black rhinos fight each other and have the highest rate of death among mammals in fights among the same species. Fifty percent of males and 30% percent of females die from these intra-species fights.

And there you have it, 25 rhino facts for World Rhino Day! I hope you enjoyed my World Rhino Day post! Bye jammers and jam on! :)