Image of the Day: The Unicorn of India

By Bruce G. Marcot, Ecology Picture of the Week:

Staring us down is the "unicorn" of India ... the Greater One-horned Rhinoceros (also called the Great Indian One-horned Rhinoceros) known by its scientific name of Rhinoceros unicornis.  Could this be the unicorn of ancient myth?  

We have approached this wary ungulate from elephant-back, here in the dense northern Indian woodlands of the terai, the wet grasslands found along the base of the Himalayas.  The Greater One-horned Rhinoceros is one of five rhino species in the world (two African, three Asian). 

Formerly widespread, it is now highly endangered with maybe only 1,750 remaining in the world in isolated pockets.  This one is part of a tiny population that had been reintroduced to a national park in northern India after having been extirpated for decades. 

Here is a paleorelic of 5 million years' evolution.  And its family (Rhinocerotidae) diverged from its closest familial ancestor, the horses (Equidae), some 50 million years ago.

This species is usually solitary and doesn't like to be approached.  It will charge and either bluff, or it will attack not by goring with its horn but rather by biting with its deadly teeth.  

Unfortunately, most individuals had been killed for its horn which has had greater value than gold per unit weight, and for its skin and body parts -- including its blood and even urine -- used for medicinal and ritual purposes.  One source (Prather 1971) noted that:

High caste Hindus and most Gurkhas offer libation of the animal's blood after entering its disemboweled body.  On ordinary Sraddh days the libation of water and milk is poured from a cup carved from its horn.  The urine is considered antiseptic and is hung in a vessel at the principal door as a charm against ghosts, evil spirits, and diseases.  These beliefs connected with the rhinoceros are prevalent in varying forms in Burma, Siam, and China.  

--Bruce G. Marcot

Image and text © Bruce G. Marcot, Ph.D. Research Wildlife Ecologist,
who produces the Ecology Picture of the Week website.