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Rhinoceros

All things rhinoceros including poaching, attacks on people, woolly rhinos and Operation: Crash. Plus pop culture and the Lesser of Two Evils: being attacked by a rhino or by 99 cats?

Music: “Action Stations” by David Lindup

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Charity: http://www.rhinos.org/ really needs our help ASAP!

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16 Responses

  1. Hey guys great episode. Just a heads up on the Youtube Video link, it doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.

    as for the Rhino shoes:

    “Rhinos’ feet are surprisingly sensitive. As they walk, rhinos put most of their weight on their toenails. In the wild, they walk around in grasslands, marshes and wetlands, which don’t wear down their toenails all that much.

    Unfortunately, when the creatures are brought to zoos and held in concrete or asphalt enclosures, the nails wear down and the rhinos have to walk on their foot pads. As a result, they often get swollen, sore and cracked feet that can quickly become infected. In fact, one zoo helped correct the problem by gluing modified horseshoes onto their rhino’s toes, allowing him to better deal with the asphalt ground. If you want to read more about the procedure (and other animal zoo stories), I highly recommend The Rhino With Glue-On Shoes.”

    Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/126783#ixzz2C1cSOiX7

  2. In regards to the tranquilizer M99, that is the same drug that main character from Dexter uses to immobilize his victims before dispatching them.

  3. Hey guys, thought this might help:

    The term species is based on whether two animals can mate and have fertile offspring – if they can’t then they’re of different species. A horse and a donkey are different species, even though they can produce a mule, because it’s sterile. It gets a bit complicated with “ring species”, where populations of (typically) little animals vary slightly around, say, a lake, so that each neighbouring group differ but can produce hybrids, but the groups at the extremities (where the initial population started, versus where the new populations ended up after long term migration around the lake) are completely different species, but they’re not very common (relatively at least, anyway).

    I suspect subspecies can still produce fertile hybrids but are morphologically (shape, colour, features, etc) distinct from one another.

    With regard to the blade shape of the woolly rhino’s horn, I happened across something on this recently – like with the woolly buffalos and yaks, etc, that have to sweep their heads side to side to clear snow to get at the grass, the flat blade of the horn is suspected to fulfil the same role: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/tibetan-woolly-rhino-e28093-adapted-for-ice-and-snow/4129496

    Your comments about sustainable rhino horn use made me think: given it’s just toenail clippings, why don’t just sell ground up toenails as rhino horn. It’d be just as effective. Failing that, farm the rhinos so we increase numbers again, but shave off a bit of the horn rather than cutting the whole thing (or half the thing) off. That’d work, wouldn’t it?

    That sternum crunch the guy received would be like a really badly cracked, rib, wouldn’t it? Yeah, it’d be sore, but I think having your legs trampled would be worse, IMHO.

    Haven’t been quite so riled about the actions of some humans in your show before.

    Great work, guys. Keep it up.

    1. I wonder who’s job it is to get animals of similar appearance to breed to see if they produce viable offspring to settle the species or not a species question. How funny would the grant proposals be for that research? Where do I apply?

    1. Thanks Marmar! When I met Mike Mignola at the HP Lovecraft film fest in Portland a couple years ago I gave him the original, that’s how I got him to do his sketch of Rhinosferatu. I also got him to autograph Rocket Raccoon #1.

  7. Thanks for explaining the White Rhino/Black Rhino conundrum. It’s bothered me and now I know.
    This great episode triggered some topic suggestions in my troubled mind.
    Man eating Lions
    Man eating tigers
    When I was a kid I had a great book called Man Is The Prey that went into details about all the living things in the world that kill humans and how they did it. The kill records of some individual lions and tigers was truly impressive.

  8. Finally some non-violence related cred!

    I think I’m likely the only person here who’s touched a baby white rhino; I was actually on the front cover of the province with her. I named her in a contest: Rhinestone. (Yes, I was a kid).

    Momma was loose in the pen with us all, just distracted by food. I’ll tell you I’ve never seen a grown man (the photographer) move so fast when Momma looked up and grunted.

    I am advised the baby went on to be an excellent mother in a breeding program back east.

  9. Unrelated to rhinos, but curly hair isn’t caused by one side growing faster than the other, its caused by follicle shape. Round follicles produce straight hair and oval follicles produce curly hair.

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  12. In Australia, we have a wonderful open range zoo at Werribee (VIC). They have Rhinoceros which roam free in their Savannah enclosure. You can take a tour bus through the enclosure. Last time we visited we got pat a large White Rhino named Leeroy who had decided to use the bus as a scratching post. His skin felt like soft leather. The Zoo has a White Rhino calf her name is Kipenzi and this summer you are able to get up close and personal with her.

    Interesting Rhino facts.

    Rhino poo is called Midden and besides using it to mark their territory they also use it to navigate.

    Their ears are able to move independently so they can hear sounds coming from different directions at the same time.

    Other animals use Rhino poo to disguise their scents to protect themselves against predator attacks.