![]() The Indian rhinoceros once lived in a vast zone of northern India and in Nepal, from the foothills of Hindu Kush to the boundary with Burma. Talbot, where their distribution one century ago was shown by a dash covering thousands of square kilometres, whilst in 1960 by a few scattered points nowadays, some biologists advance the hypothesis that some species are even extinct.ĭoesn't attack with its horn, but with big mandible canines, slant and sharp © Mazza Zoogeography ![]() Their numerical reduction was dramatically documented in the geographic maps published since 1960 by the biologist L.M. Three species live in Asia: the Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros unicornis, object of this text), the Javan rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros sondaicus) and the Sumatran rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis). The Asian species nowadays are unluckily rare (also the African ones are meeting the same destiny), as their number has been reduced by the usual “stupid and unnecessary” excessive game hunting, by the destruction of their habitats due to the human settlements and by the hunting done for getting the horns, which have been always much appreciated in the East for their alleged (but not true) aphrodisiac qualities, once reduced in powder and manipulated for preparing a drug. The rhinoceroses are animals mainly nocturnal and solitary although massive and seemingly invulnerable, they are extraordinarily shy, even if the African Black rhinoceros ( Diceros bicornis), if alarmed, almost always charges blindly. Loves water and spends the warm hours in ponds © Giuseppe MazzaThe horn consists in a mass of corneous fibres agglutinated with keratinous material, but the fibres are not real hairs as they form from skin papillae and not from piliferous follicles. The skin is very thick with sparse hairs: the horns (two, like in the African species, or one in the Indian rhinoceros), are exclusively dermal, placed over a thickening of the nasal bones and also of the frontal ones in those species holding two of them. In general terms, in the rhinoceroses the fore paws have three or four toes, the back ones three, each one with a small hoof similar to a nail in front and to a sole back. The largest among all species is the White or Square-lipped rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum) endemic to sub-Saharan Africa whilst the largest among the Asian species is the Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros unicornis). ![]() ![]() The Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros unicornisLinnaeus, 1758) is a placental, eutherian, quadrupedal pachyderm afferent to the class of the Mammals ( Mammalia), order of Perissodactyls ( Perissodactyla), to the well known family of the Rhinocerontids ( Rhinocerotidae) and to the genus Rhinoceros. The family of the rhinoceroses contains five living species, subdivided in four genera living in south-eastern Asia, in Burma, in Malaysia, in some regions of India and in most of Africa south to the Sahara.Įven if their common image is that of stocky, heavy and very sturdy animals, actually, the rhinoceroses can move with surprising speed and agility when it is necessary. With 800 units only, Rhinoceros unicornis is the largest Asian rhino © Giuseppe Mazza
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |