page_title: White rhinoceros
section_title: Behavior and ecology
hierarchical_section_title: White rhinoceros / Behavior and ecology
caption_attribution_description: White rhinoceros or square-lipped rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum.
context_page_description: The white rhinoceros or square-lipped rhinoceros is the largest extant species of rhinoceros. It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies: the southern white rhinoceros, with an estimated 19,682–21,077 wild-living animals in the year 2015, and the much rarer northern white rhinoceros. The northern subspecies has very few remaining individuals, with only two confirmed left in 2018, both in captivity. Sudan, the world's last known male northern white rhinoceros, died in Kenya on 19 March 2018.
context_section_description: White rhinoceroses are found in grassland and savannah habitat. Herbivore grazers that eat grass, preferring the shortest grains, the white rhinoceros is one of the largest pure grazers. It drinks twice a day if water is available, but if conditions are dry it can live four or five days without water. It spends about half of the day eating, one third resting, and the rest of the day doing various other things. White rhinoceroses, like all species of rhinoceros, love wallowing in mud holes to cool down. The white rhinoceros is thought to have changed the structure and ecology of the savanna's grasslands. Comparatively based on studies of the African elephant, scientists believe the white rhino is a driving factor in its ecosystem. The destruction of the megaherbivore could have serious cascading effects on the ecosystem and harm other animals.
  White rhinoceroses produce sounds which include a panting contact call, grunts and snorts during courtship, squeals of distress, and deep bellows or growls when threatened. Threat displays (in males mostly) include wiping its horn on the ground and a head-low posture with ears back, combined with snarl threats and shrieking if attacked. The vocalizations of the two species differ between each other, and the panting contact calls between individual white rhinoceroses in each species can vary as well. The differences in these calls aid the white rhinoceroses in identifying each other and communicating over long distances. The white rhinoceros is quick and agile and can run 50 km/h (31 mph).
  White rhinoceroses live in crashes or herds of up to 14 animals (usually mostly female). Sub-adult males will congregate, often in association with an adult female. Most adult bulls are solitary. Dominant bulls mark their territory with excrement and urine. The dung is laid in well-defined piles. It may have 20 to 30 of these piles to alert passing rhinoceroses that it is his territory. Another way of marking their territory is wiping their horns on bushes or the ground and scrapes with its feet before urine spraying. They do this around ten times an hour while patrolling territory. The same ritual as urine marking except without spraying is also commonly used. The territorial male will scrape-mark every 30 m (98 ft) or so around its territory boundary. Subordinate males do not mark territory. The most serious fights break out over mating rights with a female. Female territory overlaps extensively, and they do not defend it.
caption: White rhinoceros wallowing in the mud
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