Sometimes he loses his nerve and runs off, fearful of an attack from the female, only to return once again with his characteristic stiff-legged gait. The courtship may go on in this fashion for several hours. The black rhino tends to be found on its own, except when a female is accompanied by her calf, and this calf leaves when the next calf is born, following a pregnancy of 15 months. The main threat facing all these rhino, and particularly the black rhino, is man. Poachers kill rhino, not for food, but to get the horns which they sell.
Rhino horn is valued in certain parts of the world for medicinal and cultural reasons.
The horn is made of a mass of fibers attached to the skin of the rhino's snout, and is similar to fingernails and hooves. In early times, the horn was made into drinking cups which were believed to detect poison. In the Far East and especially China, people believe the horn can be used as medicine to reduce fevers. In Yemen, a Middle Eastern country, the horn is used to make handles for ceremonial knives, called jambiyas, worn by young men. A lot of work has been done to tell people that the use of rhino horn is driving these magnificent creatures to extinction.