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NL·0667AnimalsRhinocerotidaeMammal9,491 field observations
White rhinocerosNL·0667
Plate 1 of 8. (c) janaohrner, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by janaohrner · via iNaturalist

Herbarium of the Nature Library

Name
Ceratotherium simum
Family
Rhinocerotidae
Native to
Southern Africa (mainly South Africa, plus Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana and others); the northern form once ranged from Uganda to Chad
Habitat
Savanna, Grassland
IUCN NT · Near threatened

White rhinoceros

Ceratotherium simum

Also calledUmkhombe (Zulu) · Kifaru (Swahili) · Witrenoster (Afrikaans) · Báixīniú 白犀牛 (Chinese)

The largest rhinoceros and, after elephants, the heaviest land animal, a grazer with a wide square lip for cropping grass. Southern white rhinos recovered from perhaps fewer than a hundred around 1900 to over 15,000, though poaching for horn remains a constant threat.

The white rhinoceros, white rhino or square-lipped rhinoceros is the largest extant species of rhinoceros. It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies: the southern white rhinoceros, with an estimated 17,464 individuals in the wild as of the end of 2023, and the much rarer northern white rhinoceros. The northern subspecies is critically endangered and on the brink of extinction; it has only two confirmed left as of 2018. Sudan, the world's last known male northern white rhinoceros, died in Kenya in March 2018. White rhinoceros can run up to 40 mph (64 km/h) for very short bursts. They can maintain speeds of around 30–31 mph (48–50 km/h) for a good amount of time, and they have good stamina. Wikipedia

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What it can do

  1. iMows grass with a broad, square lip, creating short 'grazing lawns' used by other grazers
  2. iiCommunicates through shared dung middens, which carry information about sex, age and breeding state
  3. iiiHas a front horn of compacted keratin that can exceed 1 m
  4. ivCharges at up to ~40 km/h
§2

In the field

Field marks

  • aWide, square lip
  • bHump on the neck
  • cTwo horns
  • dGrazes on grass
Not to be confused with
Black rhino has a hooked lip, no neck hump and browses; white rhino calves run ahead of their mother, black rhino calves behind. Never approach on foot; watch from a vehicle, boat or hide, or with a licensed guide.
Where to see it
Hluhluwe–iMfolozi Park and Kruger (South Africa)
When
Resident
§3

Listen

Looking for field recordings…

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Life & habits

Diet
Herbivore: short grasses
Habitat
Open grassland and savanna with water and shade
Size
Males up to ~2,300–3,600 kg and ~1.8 m at the shoulder; females ~1,700 kg
Lifespan
40–50 years

Calves walk ahead of their mothers, unlike black rhino calves, which follow behind.

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Where it lives

Recorded sightings

—

geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.

Native range

Southern Africa (mainly South Africa, plus Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana and others); the northern form once ranged from Uganda to Chad

Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.

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In the old herbals & bestiaries

No plate in the Source Library names this exact species, so these show its closest relatives as the old naturalists drew them: same genus, or the same kind of animal. Click a plate to read the page it came from, with translation.

§7

In the stacks

Searching the stacks…

Every page naming Ceratotherium simum in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →

§8

Marginalia

Reserves in Zululand, including Hluhluwe-iMfolozi (1895), sheltered the last southern white rhinos, and 'Operation Rhino' in the 1960s moved them to parks across Africa. The name 'white' is often traced, without firm evidence, to Dutch or Afrikaans wijd, 'wide', for its mouth.

Curiosity

Only two northern white rhinos, both female, survive; scientists are trying to save the subspecies with IVF and surrogate southern white mothers.

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Kinship

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›subphylumVertebrata
  4. ›classMammalia
  5. ›subclassTheria
  6. ›infraclassPlacentalia
  7. ›superorderLaurasiatheria
  8. ›orderPerissodactyla
  9. ›familyRhinocerotidae
  10. ›genusCeratotherium
Open its branch on the Wheel of Life →

Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 43348.