Can you differentiate between black and white rhinos? Let’s learn five risky rhinos facts for kids.
Do you know how to tell the difference between the White and Black rhino? It’s not their colour, because they are both grey! The white rhino actually got its name from the Afrikaans word for ‘wide’ because they have a wider, square upper lip, but it became mixed up and turned into ‘white’ instead. So they started calling the other African species of Rhino the black rhino to tell the difference.
These incredible creatures are some of the biggest animals in world! The largest of the five species is the white rhino, which can grow to 1.8m tall and and weigh a massive 2,500kg – that’s the weight of 30 men!
We have the same material as rhino horns on our bodies. Can you guess where? Our nails and hair are made of a protein called Keratin, and this is the same stuff that rhino horn is made of!
Rhinos actually can’t see very well, they usually rely on their noses for directions, they are so bad at seeing that they can’t see a person when they are standing still.
How do you get a bug off you? You use your hands and take it off right? Well rhinos can’t really do that as they have big, thick, flat toes. So how do they get rid of unwanted visitors on their bodies like ticks? A great way is to go for a lovely filthy mud wallow and get mucky! The thick mud forms a layer over their bodies which will dry over time and kills off the ticks. As the mud cracks and falls off the parasites will fall off with it. Clever hey!
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about rhinos as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic these animals are, you can move on to learn about other animals and birds like: Nocturnal Animals, Animal Adaptation and Endangered Animals.
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