11/18/2023 0 Comments Western black rhino![]() ![]() ![]() The researchers found that the ventricular system of the White Rhino is much larger than that of the Black Rhino, and again this difference may be related to the species’ differing diets. The fluid plays an important role in all mammals: it supports the brain, cushioning it from sudden blows, and plays a vital role in clearing the brain of metabolic waste products and toxins. ![]() The last difference noted by the researchers focused on the brian’s ventricular system, which surrounds the brain within the skull and holds the cerebrospinal fluid. A better ability to smell would be more critical to a browser reliant on a greater number of plants and their seasonality than for a grazing animal with a far more limited and less seasonal diet. The area of the brain concerned with the sense of smell is larger in Black Rhinos. Therefore, a better “mind map” of their surroundings, coupled with a memory for what food is available where and when, would be a distinct advantage. This would be important for Black Rhinos as they browse on a greater number of seasonal plant species in a bushier, more wooded environment compared to the fewer and less seasonably variable grasses grazed by White Rhinos in their more open habitat.īlack Rhinos also tend to have larger territories. For example, the area of the brain that remembers the details of a mammal’s surroundings is bigger in Black Rhinos than in White Rhinos. A long, low-slung head might be an evolutionary advantage to the “mowing” feeding action of the White Rhino.ĭietary specialization could also explain a few other differences noted by the researchers. The significance of the brain and skull shape could be related to their different feeding habits: Black Rhinos are browsers while White Rhinos are grazers. The Black Rhino has a shorter, broader skull, while that of the White Rhino is narrower and longer. The brain shape is in keeping with the general head shape. ![]() But, the Black Rhino’s brain is more rounded than the more elongated shape of that of the White Rhino. Not surprisingly, given that the two species are each other’s closest relatives, their brains are very similar in appearance. They examined the brain of a male Black Rhino and that of a female White Rhino and made some interesting observations. Recently, scientists at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand have begun to fill the gap in our knowledge about rhino brains. Poaching has since declined, but this is more a consequence of fewer rhinos in places like the Kruger National Park and the challenge of finding them. In 2014 global rhino deaths at the hands of poachers rose to almost 1,400-nearly 90 percent of them in South Africa. The Southern White Rhino has been particularly hard hit. But from 2008, South Africa, by then home to 85 percent of all rhinos worldwide, came increasingly under siege owing to a renewed and expanding market for rhino horn, predominantly in Asia. During this time, the Northern White Rhino also suffered greatly and is now extinct in the wild.Ī short respite ensued. From 1970 to the mid-1990s, Black Rhinos were nearly wiped out due to the sudden, huge demand for horns to fashion traditional dagger handles in the Middle East. Any respite, however, proved short-lived. This was followed by waves of intensive poaching to supply a highly lucrative, illegal, and unsustainable demand for their horn.īy the latter decades of the 20th century, the tide had turned in southern Africa and India. First came a seemingly insatiable desire to shoot them for sport, especially before and during colonial times. In a few short decades at the end of the 1800s and into the 1900s, human population growth, expanding settlements, mining, and the conversion of vast swathes of land for crops and livestock had taken a dreadful toll on all wildlife. ![]()
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