Black Rhino

All info taken from http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/companions.html below is some key areas of information.

"It is instinct that dictates a lot of their actions, particularly matters important to survival. Theirs is a hidden and complex world of scent and chemistry, their social system is complex, their body language and vocalisations subtle and their very rigid territoriality often confusing.

SKIN: Despite the ancient English saying -"a hide like a rhino", the skin of a rhino is extremely sensitive. Touch a rhino with a feather, and it will immediately respond. Rhino skin has an ample blood supply very close to the surface and, in fact, when the animal is in poor health, the skin "bleeds", coating the animal. in a what looks like tar, but, in fact is dried blood.

RHINO SENSE: Rhinos have myopic vision, but this is no handicap, but merely that they don't need their eyes in view of the sophistication of their other senses. For instance, they have phenomenal hearing. Our orphaned rhinos can detect the approach of another rhino half an hour before the animal actually becomes visible. A rhino's "Come Here" call to a loved one is no more than a soft exhalation of breath that is barely audible but which obviously carries far and is used mostly between mother and young. The rhino repertoire of louder sounds is equally as impressive -- long drawn out snorts that resemble a nose blow which signify alarm, a mewing noise like a kitten which is a "wanting" sound, and a loud terrifying roar more akin to the voice of a lion when angry and prepared for combat.

Chemistry plays probably the most significant role within a rhino's life. By kicking their dung with the hind feet, they demarcate boundaries and territory and leave their specific scent trail on the ground for others to know where they have gone. By contributing their dung to the communal dungpiles, they alert all others within the community to their presence and establish their right to "belong". By squirting their urine against shrubs and bushes they advertise their rank and status through hormones, in the case of the females, also indicating estrous cycles and in the case of-the males alerting others to dominance and rank which are important parameters for breeding. The memory of a rhino is also phenomenal. Having carefully and meticulously explored their surroundings only once, a new orphan can then take it at a gallop and never collide with any obstacle, moving swiftly and surely simply by memory and scent.

The role of rhinos within the environment is a very important one. The Black Rhino is essentially a browser, feeding mainly on shrubs, legumes and noxious weeds, many of which are poisonous to other animals. By cleanly clipping larger branches and twigs, they promote fresh soft shoots that sustain a large variety and number of other herbivores during the dry seasons. By ridding the pastures of toxic weeds, they inhibit their spread, thereby improving the grazing for others. They are a highly successful species in terms of Nature, moderate in their food requirements, modest in their need for space. Were it not for the insane demand for their horn in the Far and Middle East, and indeed, for all their body components, which are enmeshed in myth and superstition, rhinos today would be as numerous as they were when the world was new. Only man's insatiable greed has pushed these wonderful animals to the very brink of extinction, so that today they teeter on the very edge of annihilation."

some interesting first hand stories of orphaned rhinos http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/rhino_archival.asp