# Rhinoceros ... mmm ... Rhinceros horns **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444 "2011-11-10T00:00:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/1 "2011-11-10T00:00:29Z")
Can a rhino see its horns? If you could get one to hold still long enough for you to cut its horn off, would it grow back? I’m assuming they’re pointy because the grow faster in the center but that could just be me being stupid. Are rhino horns good for anything apart from getting rhinos shot? They look daunting enough, are they actually used for poking other critters or do they serve some other less obvious purpose. Better reception, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/2 "2011-11-10T00:07:05Z")
they root out, dig a little, and fight with those horns. a healthy prime rhino has a short, blunt horn. a timid one content to graze tends to grow a long and thin horn. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/3 "2011-11-10T00:47:30Z")
I think rhino horns grow upward from the base. They’re made of keratin \*so that some call them “compacted hair”, and aren’t made of the same material as antlers. A mutilated horn will not “fill back in”. There’s such a horn in the Hall of Indian Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History. Rhinos use their horns to hit things with, and they do try to pierce them . AFAIK that’s all they’re good for. Probably lady rhinos find them sexy – horns and suchlike seem to be sexual features. For a long time there was a story that the horn of a unicorm was proof against poison, so kings tried to arrange to have cups made of whast they thought was unicorn horn – or at least ones that had a piece of unicorn horn built into it. As late as the 18th century, according to unicorn author Odell Shepherd, London Apothecaries were required to stock powdered unicorn horn. a pretty neat trick, as unicorns didn’t exist. as a result, anything wiith a unicorn-like horn got pressed into service. The Cloisters in New York has a cop made of narwhal horn. And there are several cups of rhino horn. There may be a grain of truth in the story, since, as one theory claims, a lot of ancient poisons were powerful alkaloids, and if it were to be put in a rhino-horn cup, it would start to dissolvve the binding keratin, and the user might be lucky enough to notice something happening to his cup before he drank the poison. a fascinating theory, which i have not been able to locate the original source of. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/4 "2011-11-10T01:14:31Z")
And later in its life a rhino will shed it’s horn and become a hippo 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/5 "2011-11-10T12:25:28Z")
Sometimes their horns are cut off, leaving a flat sort of stub, before they’re transported between zoos, etc. They grow back, but fairly slowly. [Here’s one](http://www.flickr.com/photos/17270214@N05/4721590394/) not long after arrival at Edinburgh Zoo. I think [this rhino](http://www.flickr.com/photos/17270214@N05/4185420852/) took about 2 years to grow this much horn back - when it arrived it’s horn had been cut back like the other one. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/6 "2011-11-10T19:26:57Z")
[Africa’s Western Black Rhino declared extinct](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45236688/ns/world_news-world_environment/#.Trwkg0ar9FM) > [@](#): > > GENEVA – The Western Black Rhino of Africa was declared officially extinct Thursday by a leading conservation group. > > The International Union for Conservation of Nature said that two other subspecies of rhinoceros were close to meeting the same fate. > > The Northern White Rhino of central Africa is now “possibly extinct” in the wild and the Javan Rhino “probably extinct” in Vietnam, after poachers killed the last animal there in 2010. > > A small but declining population survives on the Indonesian island of Java. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/7 "2011-11-10T22:21:23Z")
Re post #6, from the Wikipedia article: > [@](#): > > The five living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the White Rhinoceros and the Black Rhinoceros, diverged during the early Pliocene (about 5 million years ago) but the Dicerotini group to which they belong originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths. White rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing and black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage. A popular — if unverified — theory claims that the name White Rhinoceros was actually a mistake, or rather a corruption of the word wyd (“wide” in Afrikaans), referring to their square lips.[4] > > White Rhinoceros are divided into Northern and Southern subspecies. There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian Rhinoceros and the Javan Rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago. The Sumatran Rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (about 20 million years b= ago).[5] The extinct Woolly Rhinoceros of northern Europe and Asia was also a member of this tribe. > [@](#): > > There are two subspecies of White Rhinos; as of 2005, South Africa has the most of the first subspecies, the Southern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum). The population of Southern White Rhinos is about 14,500, making them the most abundant subspecies of rhino in the world. However, the population of the second subspecies, the critically endangered Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), is down to as few as four individuals in the wild, and as of June 2008 this sub-species are thought to have become extinct in the wild.[7] Six are known to be held in captivity, two of which reside in a zoo in San Diego. There are currently four born in a zoo in the Czech Republic which were transferred to a wildlife refuge in Kenya in December 2009, in an effort to have the animals reproduce and save the subspecies. > [@](#): > > The name Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) was chosen to distinguish this species from the White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). This can be confusing, as those two species are not really distinguishable by colour. There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central (Diceros bicornis minor), the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa; South-western (Diceros bicornis bicornis) which are better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana and western South Africa; East African (Diceros bicornis michaeli), primarily in Tanzania; and West African (Diceros bicornis longipes) which was declared extinct in November 2011. > [@](#): > > The Indian Rhinoceros or the Greater One-horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is now found almost exclusively in Nepal and North-Eastern India. The rhino once inhabited many areas of Pakistan to Burma and may have even roamed in China. But because of human influence their range has shrunk and now they only exist in several protected areas of India (in Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat and a few pairs in Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal, plus a few pairs in Lal Suhanra National Park in Pakistan. > [@](#): > > The Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is one of the rarest and most endangered large mammals anywhere in the world.[16] According to 2002 estimates, only about 60 remain, in Java (Indonesia) and Vietnam. Of all the rhino species, the least is known of the Javan Rhino. These animals prefer dense lowland rain forest, tall grass and reed beds that are plentiful with large floodplains and mud wallows. Though once widespread throughout Asia, by the 1930s the rhinoceros was nearly hunted to extinction in India, Burma, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sumatra for the supposed medical powers of its horn and blood. As of 2009, there are only 40 of them remaining in Ujung Kulon Conservation, Java, Indonesia. The last rhinoceros in Vietnam was reportedly killed in 2010. > [@](#): > > The Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the smallest extant rhinoceros species, as well as the one with the most fur, which allows it to survive at very high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra. Due to habitat loss and poaching, its numbers have declined and it is one of the world’s rarest mammals. About 275 Sumatran Rhinos are believed to remain. Of the lot, only the Southern White Rhino is not considered endangered to some degree. It’s a sad state of affairs for a family of mammals that was highly successful throughout the Miocene, Pliocene, and even the Ice Age, throughout the Old World, with giant forms, hippo-like amphibious forms, gazelle-like running forms, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/8 "2011-11-10T22:33:05Z")
All good info, naturally. But can a rhino see it’s horns? ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/9 "2011-11-10T23:44:51Z")
I don’t think they can, but if they could it would be like you seeing your own nose. From this [website](http://johannesburg.hotelguide.co.za/Johannesburg_Tours_&_Day_Trips-travel/gauteng-hotel-rhino-lion-park-tour.html): “Rhinoceros have very poor eyesight. In fact, they cannot see a person standing motionless if they are more than 30m away. Since its eyes are on opposite sides of its head, the Rhinoceros must look with one eye at a time to see straight ahead.” And here’s [another photo](http://www.flickr.com/photos/17270214@N05/5299883429/in/photostream/) showing that their eyes tend to look sideways more than ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/10 "2011-11-11T01:33:50Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The Cloisters in New York has a cop made of narwhal horn. That’s nothing. The Museum of Natural History is guarded by a Teddy Roosevelt made of wax. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/11 "2011-11-11T01:50:43Z")
deleted - above post #9 answered what I was going to say ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhinoceros-mmm-rhinceros-horns/602444/12 "2011-11-11T02:18:27Z")
☹ A friend of mine once asked, "Why should I care if there aren’t any more rhinos or elephants…what is the big deal? I replied, “Oh, I dunno–but tell me, when _ **your** _ grandchildren point at a picture in a book and ask why they’re all gone, what are \*\*\*you \*\*\*going to tell them?” Appropriate musical selection for this thread: [Adrian Belew , Lone Rhinoceros](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X65Z6JEBUk) [QUOTE=A. Belew] I’m a lone rhinoceros–there ain’t one hell of a lots of us left in this world They say I am ugly ,call me a beast when I’m half asleep Is beauty such a big commodity? I always heard it was only so deep… [/QUOTE]