Fig. 159. Das indische Nashorn. Rhinoceros indicus.

Title

Fig. 159. Das indische Nashorn. Rhinoceros indicus.

Description

Picture shows an Indian rhinoceros at a lake.

ca. 1860

Artist

k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei (1804-1918)

The imperial-royal court and state printing office was the security printing office operating in the imperial and royal capital Vienna of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary until 1918. It became the Austrian State Printing Office in the First Republic.

Historical Description

Rhinoceroses are a family of odd-toed ungulates with five species still living today. Rhinos today live in Africa south of the Sahara and in South and Southeast Asia, both in savannah landscapes and in tropical rainforests in highlands and lowlands. However, the original distribution was much wider. The phylogenetically oldest species can be traced back to the Middle Eocene, around 50 million years ago, in Eurasia and North America. At the end of the last ice age, the rhinoceroses disappeared from northern Asia and Europe. In the course of their phylogenetic history, the various rhinoceros species occupied almost all ecological niches accessible to large, terrestrial mammals. Rhinos often live as solitary animals, but in savannahs they can also occur in small, matriarchally organized herds. Bulls are usually solitary and territorial. The individual animals live in narrowly defined territories. All rhinos feed exclusively on plant foods and are adapted to this diet with broad molars. However, the species have specialized in different plant foods. Four of the five rhino species living today prefer soft plant foods such as leaves, branches, twigs, buds and fruit.