The black rhino's decline has been tremendously accelerated in the last decade by poaching to meet demand for rhino horn from Arab and Asian countries, and it is rapidly approaching extinction. Yet all it needs is protection.

- Richard Este

Rhino Love Story
She thinks the car is sexy. Tossing her head coquettishly, displaying her curving front horn to the best advantage, she beckons with her beakish upper lip. She blinks her turtle-like eyes at the car, too nearsighted to realize that seconds earlier her armored paramour, sniffing the scent of humans, ran away into the bushes.

Now she prances, stiff-legged, before the motionless auto. No response. She pulls a tuft of grass from the ground and lobs it seductively through the air. With a metallic thud, it lands on the hood. Still the car refuses to move. Drastic measures are in order. Down comes the head, up goes the tail, and she attacks. She dashes angrily at the fender and hurls 2,200 pounds of feminine beauty at her suitor. Now the people in the car start to scream. She can hear, even if she can't see well This thing, she realizes, is a hideous impostor. In utter disgust, she turns away and ambles toward a salt lick.

Physical Traits and Behavior
Experiences like this, related by photographer Martin Johnson in Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, attest to the myopia of the black rhinoceros. A rhino may attack an object it cannot identify, snorting furiously, only to veer away at the last moment. Not many humans possess the fortitude to wait for that crucial moment. Such quasi-attacks have cost many rhinos their lives.

To compensate for their eyesight, rhinos have a sense of smell so acute that mothers and young typically find each other by sniffing for tracks. Rhinos also hear well and can direct their cone-shaped ears toward the sources of sound.

Rhinos spend most of their time eating, sleeping, and wallowing. Strictly herbivorous, they munch on 200 varieties of plants from 50 different families. If a large proportion of those plants are succulents, rhinos can go four to five days without drinking. They use their prehensile upper lips to browse selectively, and large molars allow them to grind woody or fibrous plants. Rhinos can sleep lying on top of their gathered legs, or on their sides, or even standing up. They are sound sleepers and can be dangerous if startled awake.

They are hairless, except for the tips of their tails and the fringes in their ears. Like other hairless mammals, they love to wallow. A good roll in the mud cools them off on hot summer days and may relieve irritation caused by parasites. Rhinos attract a lot of parasites, which makes for interesting relationships with other species. Turtles pull ticks off rhinos, bracing their forefeet against the wrinkled skin and pulling until the tick breaks free. Cattle egrets do not remove parasites, but they follow rhinos and feed on insects that the larger animals stir up.

Black rhino calves are born after a gestation of 15-16 months. Mother and young usually stay together two to four years and may adopt immature rhinos who have lost their own mothers. Adult males tend to be sedentary and solitary.

Rhinos have few predators, but they are occasionally eaten by lions. In a fight between an elephant and a rhino, the elephant would almost certainly win.

Rhino Horn, aka "Chinese Viagara"
The glory and downfall of the black rhinoceros is its distinctive configuration of facial horns. Adult males and females may have one to three horns. The longest documented horn belonged to Gertie, a rhino in the Amboseli Game Reserve, whose 53-inch front horn made her the most photographed game animal in the world for many years.

Rhino horns are composed of keratin, a substance like fingernails. The substance is believed by men in Yemen and parts of Asia to be a powerful aphrodisiac. This belief has increased the value of rhino horn astronomically and has led to rampant poaching. During the last 30 years, black rhino populations have declined an almost unthinkable 96 percent, one of the most rapid declines of any large mammal. Efforts to protect them by shooting them with stun guns and sawing off their horns have been fairly successful. Closer monitoring of rhino habitats has also increased their numbers. One of the world's last indigenous black rhino population, which lives inside the Ngorongoro Crater, has begun to grow.