Kipling's Rhinoceros

In those days the Rhinoceros's skin fitted him quite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere.
—Rudyard Kipling in 'Just So Stories'

Once upon a time, wrote Rudyard Kipling in "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin," the hide of a rhinoceros was very smooth and it buttoned beneath his belly with three buttons so that he could take it off to bathe or if he became too hot. When did it become so thick and folded?

One day the rhinoceros made the mistake of stealing and eating a Parsee's freshly baked cake. In revenge, when the Parsee came upon the rhino one day while the rhino was bathing, the Parsee sprinkled the inside of the rhino's skin with cake crumbs.

When the rhinoceros put his skin back on, he was so uncomfortable and felt so itchy that he rolled over and over again on the ground and against the trees. And the rhino's skin, once so smooth, became stretched and rough and folded over upon itself. Kipling's story and Albrecht Dürer's woodcut (below) are examples of the extent to which humans perceive a rhino's skin as the distinctive trait that outweighs all others.

Rhinoceros skin: thick but sensitive

Durer's rhinoceros

The skin of a rhinoceros can be up to two inches thick. It is made up of many layers of collagen arranged in a crisscross pattern. While the skin is thick, it is also sensitive, which is part of the reason there is so much of it—more is needed to provide insulation and protection. The skin is especially sensitive on the surface.

The folds of a rino's skin are arrange differently on different species. For example, on the Indian rhinoceros, the folds are found mainly around the animal's joints, which makes movement easier.

Oxpeckers to the rescue

OxpeckersIn Africa, the oxpecker is one of the rhino's best friends. It sits on his back and feeds off of ticks, parasites, and other insects that crawl on the skin. The oxpecker will even disappear into a rhino's ears to pick at insects. Oxpeckers are also called tickbirds, and they thrive on other large mammals such as zebras and giraffes.

In Swahili, the name of the oxpecker means "the rhino's guard." The bird warns the rhinoceros of danger by making warning sounds. The rhinceros has a fine sense of hearing, but it has poor eyesight.

Rhinoceros wallowing in mud

Mud to the rescue

Because of their sensitive skin, rhinos spend a lot of time wallowing in the mud of rivers or in the shallow part of other bodies of water. Spending time in the mud protects their skin from insects and keeps them cool. When they emerge, the mud dries and protects them while on dry land.

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