Baby Rhino
Zulu Nyala has about seven resident white Rhinos.
On one of our first days out, we ran into two of them. They were about 30 feet from the jeep, and heading towards us. They came straight up to the side of the jeep, within about 4 feet and turned to the right. I took this shot as they were approaching.
It was quite a breath-taking experience. I have seen Rhinos in pictures and also the odd dormant and half-brain-dead Rhino in the Zoo, but never in the wild like this, and never without safety bars or a moat separating us. They are amazing creatures - very prehistoric feeling. With the ambiance of the fading light, it felt like we were in the set for Jurassic Park.
We followed them for a while as the sun started to set.
Later on we found them down by a watering hole trying to steal a drink and wallow in the mud.
Unfortunately for the Rhinos, there were about 11 hippos lurking in the water.
The hippos are very territorial and don’t like anyone drinking from their waters. The Rhinos approached the bank and started sipping from the water.
The hippos displayed their might and came up and chomped their jaws open wide, and then - slam down into the water again. A random factoid of the day for you is that a single hippo tooth weighs about nine pounds!
(Kudos to RonG’s GIF Movie Gear app that allowed me to whip out this quick animation in 5 minutes)
This was enough to scare off the Rhinos for now and they trotted off into the grasses. Ten minutes later they sneaked around to the back of the watering hole and drank and wallowed in the mud a safe distance from the hippos.
After a good wallow in the mud, there is nothing that a Rhino needs to do more than to mark his territory. They do this by peeing in the area and then stomping it into the ground. It was fascinating to learn about this behavioral trait
as I also witnessed Nigel doing the same thing by his sun-bed at pool after a few too many gin & tonics. I always wondered what he was up to - great trick to keep the Germans away from the beds.
One of the main reasons that Rhinos like to wallow in the mud is to loosen up the parasites that have taken up residence on their thick skin. Once the parasites are wet, they then look for a scratching post to scrape them off. This is usually a tree or a rock. We followed two Rhinos one night, who seemed to have a wail of a time scratching their bellies and undercarriages on a big rock. You can just see the rock in the lower left of this shot:
We followed a little longer and then caught up to yet another set of Rhinos! This time a mummy Rhino and her 5 week old baby. They were both being stalked by daddy Rhino, but the mum was mad at him and snorted and chased him every time he got too close.
He was so cute! Quite adorable… he’d jog off to the side now and again with his little stubby Rhino legs. Here’s a shot of Baby Rhino all on his own, showing his little horn-stub.
I always wanted to see Rhinos, and I sure got my fill on this trip!
July 15th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
What fabulous shots you got. I’d like to share a video that Jamie took of an elephant that came right up to our jeep when we were in Tanzania - what e-mail address should I use?