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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
BLACK OR HOOK-LIPPED RHINOCEROS 
The triangular, prehensile process of the upper lip, responsible for the name “hook-lipped,”” helps this browser gather lea 
anterior horn is roundish and usually longer than the posterior one, but both may vary considerably in form. 
between the usual pair is abnormal. 
expeditions to British East Africa. 
and twigs. The 
In this ease the tiny third horn 
Both photographs from a bull shot by the late Mr. Richard Tjader at Solai, during the first of his three 
The right hand picture is reproduced by courtesy of D. Appleton and Company from Mr. Tjader’s book 
“The Big Game of Africa,’ (New York, 1910.) 
The ‘white’ rhinoceros, whose 
hide is naturally dark slate gray, 
belongs, like the elephant, hippopotamus and 
giraffe, to those groups of gigantic land mam- 
mals which flourished millions of years ago. At 
present it is impossible to state with any rea- 
sonable degree of precision which is the largest 
of the five species of rhinoceros still living in 
India, Malaysia and Africa. Huge dead mam- 
mals are so difficult to handle that accuracy in 
measurements, made in so many different ways, 
cannot be expected. When taken from mounted 
skins and skeletons they are liable to introduce 
even greater errors Unfortunately the natives’ 
and sportsmen’s hecatombs of these giants never 
have furnished to any museum a sufficient num- 
ber of adult specimens by which to settle all 
questions of size. Perhaps the white rhinoceros 
surpasses in bulk the great Indian species, but 
we are not sure of it. The latter, like the lighter 
built Javan species, has only one horn, in con- 
trast with the smaller, hairier, two-horned 
Sumatran, and the only other African species, 
the black rhinoceros. 
Color 
The names “‘square-lipped,” “‘square-nosed,” 
and “‘square-mouthed” for the white rhinoceros 
are traceable to the broad and truncated snout, 
with wide-open nostrils. The term “hook- 
lipped” is equally applicable to the triangular, 
pointed and prehensile median process of the 
upper lip of the African black rhinoceros. In- 
cidentally, this broad snout and heavy underlip 
are facial features that may, as in horses, ex- 
press moods of great excitement, though two 
other signs help to announce this,—the tail 
held high or knotted in “‘pig-tail” fashion, and 
the cocked-up ears. 
= The subspecifie differences be- 
The tween the South African and the 
South Te : 5 é P 
Mecca Nile-Congo races of white rhinoc- 
Race eroses are slight. Heller* con- 
siders the great concavity in the 
dorsal outline of the skull of the southern form 
(C. s. simum) as the only valid difference. But 
even this character is subject to doubt, for the 
material collected by the Congo Expedition 
shows the same amount of individual variation 
that seems to be common among all large mam- 
mals. The white rhinoceros differs from the 
black in the following external characters: 
Greater average size; longer head; fleshy hump 
in front of shoulder; truncated snout; straight 
lips, the lower one with horny edge; relatively. 
heavier horns, the anterior with squarish base 
and flattened front; bigger soles for the feet. 
The huge bulk of the white rhi- 
Bulk noceros standing erect and alert, 
ad with its unwieldy head and cocked 
ears turned in the direction of 
danger, presents an impressive sight. The 
* Smithson 
I-XXXI,. 
Misc. Goll., LX, No. -1, 1913, pp. 1-77, Pls. 
