Re: new boook on functional morphology

[ornstn@inforamp.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

>Good question!  And is there anyone out there who knows much about 
>rhinoceros behavior - what is the primary employment of the rhino horn? 
>The only pachy skull I ever saw seemed to have a heavily-vascularized 
>horn lump, perhaps suggesting a since-lost overlay of horn of some 
>significance.  
>Thanks.
>

Rhinos certainly do use their horns for defence, as was implied by Joel
Berger's study in Namibia that showed that dehorned rhinos suffered 100%
calf failure in areas where there were lions and/or hyenas while horned
animals were able to raise young successfully (for which he got booted out
of Namibia by the govt. which is trying to push dehorning and commercial
sale of horn, but that's another story....)

According to Richard Estes' "The Behavior Guide to African Mammals",
"African rhinos have much the longest horns, which are employed as stabbing
weapons against predators but usually only as staves in encounters with
other rhinos".  Black rhino males meeting each other at territorial
boundaries "tend to be peaceful, including gentle head and horn nudging...."
Fighting among rhinos rarely results in serious injury, but a female has
been known to kill a lion.  White rhinos "stand horn to horn staring at each
other.. next they back away and ground-wipe with the front horn, readvance,
back up and so on.  Sometimes they clash horns briefly..."

The only dino point I would draw from all this is to note that the same
piece of equipment can be used in different ways by the same animal in
antipredator and agonistic encounters.  Cerato horns may have been
multi-functional too.
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116 (home)
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