Indian rhinoceros

Indian rhinoceros, (Rhinoceros unicornis), the largest of the three Asian rhinoceroses. The Indian rhinoceros weighs between 1,800 and 2,700 kg (4,000 and 6,000 pounds). It stands 2 metres (7 feet) high at the shoulder and is 3.5 metres (11.5 feet) long. The Indian rhinoceros is more or less equivalent in size to the white rhinoceros of Africa and is distinguishable from the Javan rhinoceros by its greater size, the presence of a large horn, tubercles on its skin, and a different arrangement of skin folds. The Indian rhinoceros occupies the world’s tallest grasslands, where at the end of the summer monsoon in October grasses reach 7 metres (23 feet) tall. They are primarily grazers, except during the winter when they consume a larger proportion of browse. An Indian rhinoceros female will conceive again quickly if she loses her calf. Tigers kill about 10–20 percent of calves, but they rarely kill calves older than 1 year, so those Indian rhinoceroses that survive past that point are invulnerable to nonhuman predators. The Indian rhinoceros fights with its razor-sharp lower outer incisor teeth, not with its horn. Such teeth, or tusks, can reach 13 cm (5 inches) in length among dominant males and inflict lethal wounds on other males competing for access to breeding females.

The Indian rhinoceros previously occupied an extensive range across northern India and Nepal from Assam state in the east to the Indus River valley in the west. Today this species is restricted to about 11 reserves in India and Nepal. Nearly 3,600 individuals of breeding age remain in the wild. Because this species reaches high densities on dynamic nutrient-rich floodplains, rhinoceros populations recover quickly when these habitats—and the rhinoceroses themselves—are protected from poaching. In Kaziranga National Park in Assam State, Indian rhinoceroses numbered only 12 individuals about 1900, but today approximately 2,400 are estimated for this reserve. Similarly, the Chitwan population declined to 60–80 animals in the late 1960s after the eradication of malaria in the Chitwan Valley, the conversion of natural habitat to rice farming, and rampant poaching. By 2000 the population had climbed back to more than 600 individuals, large enough in number to allow the transfer of some individuals to other reserves in Nepal and India where they had once occurred but had been extirpated. However, roughly 100 animals were killed by poachers in Royal Chitwan National Park between 2000 and 2003, reducing the Indian rhinoceros population of the reserve to fewer than 400 animals. By 2015, however, due to the success of increased anti-poaching efforts, the population increased to more than 600 individuals.

The Indian rhinoceroses’ dung piles, or middens, are of interest not only as places where scent is deposited and as communication posts but also as sites for the establishment of plants. Indian rhinoceroses can deposit as much as 25 kg (55 pounds) in a single defecation, and more than 80 percent of defecations occur on existing latrines rather than as isolated clusters. By defecating the ingested seeds of fruits from the forest floor, rhinoceroses are important in helping shade-intolerant trees to colonize open areas. The Indian rhinoceroses’ dung piles support interesting collections of over 25 species of plants whose seeds are ingested by rhinoceroses and germinate in the nutrient-rich dung.