White Rhinoceros

The white rhino is the largest species of land mammal after the elephant. As a species, the white rhino is the least endangered of the living kinds of rhino. Careful management in the Republic of South Africa has allowed the white rhino population to rise dramatically; approximately 80% of the white rhino population is in South Africa.

There are two distinct subspecies: northern white rhino and the southern white rhino. The white rhino is square-lipped- it lacks a prehensile "hook". This allows the rhino to eat a wide swath of the green, short grasses that grow in the open savannahs.

The term "white" comes from the Afrikaans word describing its mouth: weit, meaning "wide"; early English settlers in South Africa misinterpreted the "weit" for "white".