Rhinoceros
From EvoWiki
| Rhinoceros
| ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||
|
Rhinoceros can be used to refer to the genus Rhinoceros of the family Rhinocerotidae, or more generally to any of the five surviving species in four genera of Rhinocerotidae. The genera Ceratotherium, Dicerorhinus, and Diceros contain one species each, while the genus Rhinoceros contains two species. The White Rhinoceros(Ceratotherium simum) and the Black Rhinoceros(Diceros Bicornis) are native to Africa, while the Sumatran Rhinoceros(Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), Indian Rhinoceros(Rhinoceros unicornis), and Javan Rhinoceros(Rhinoceros sodaicus) are native to various parts of Asia.
The name Rhinoceros derives from the Greek words "rhino" and "ceros", meaning "nose" and "horn", respectively. Each species has either one, or two horns, which consists of keratin They're herbivorous animals, whose diet intake is either from grazing, browsing, or a combination of the two, depending on species.
Evolutionary History
The oldest known rhinoceros, Caenopenes and Aceratheres, first appeared around 30 million years ago in the Oligocene in North America and Europe. By the middle of the Oligocene, rhinoceros had diverged into two distinct lines, one eventually giving rise to rhinoceros with a single horn, and the other giving rise to rhinoceros with two horns. The first appearance of two horned rhinoceros in Asia dates to around 15 million years ago in the Miocene, while the first appearance of two horned rhinoceros in Africa traces to approximately 10 million years ago at the end of the Miocene. Today, two species, Ceratotherium simum and Diceros bicornis, still survive in Africa, both species having diverged during the early Pliocene 5 million years ago, with Ceratotherium developing broad, flat lips for grazing and Diceros developing long, pointed lips for browsing foliage.
Rhinoceros have been slowly going extinct for the last several million years. They disappeared entirely from North America during the Pliocene, while the remaining Northern Asia and European rhinoceros going extinct at various times during the Pleistocene. The Woolly Rhinoceros(Coelodonta), which is depicted in early human cave paintings, bit the bullet during the last Ice Age, with Coelodonta antiquitatis dying off around 15,000 years ago.
Today, all five of the remaining species of rhinoceros except C. simum are either endangered, or critically endangered, and even C. simum is listed as “Near Threatened” by the World Conservation Union, due to their being heavily poached for use in folk medicine.
This page is a stub. You can help EvoWiki by expanding it into a full article. See this page for some ideas for how the page could look.
References
Ballenger, L. and P. Myers. 2001. "Rhinocerotidae" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed April 03, 2007 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Rhinocerotidae.html.
