n. A large pachydermatous perissodactyl mammal with a horn on the nose; any member of the genus Rhinoceros or family Rhinocerotidæ. There are several living as well as many fossil species. They are huge ungainly quadrupeds, having an extremely thick and tough or hard skin, thrown into various buckler-like plates and folds. The legs are short, stout, and clumsy, with odd-toed feet, whose three digits are incased in separate hoofs. The tail is short; the ears are high and rather large; the head is very large and unshapely, supported upon a thick stocky neck; the muzzle is blunt, and the upper lip freely movable. The head is especially long in the nasal region, and there are usually one or two massive upright horns, without any bony core, the substance of the horn being epidermal only. When two horns are present they are one behind the other in the median line, and the hinder one rests over the frontal bone, the front one being in any case borne upon the nasal bones. Rhinoceroses live mainly in marshy places, in thick or rank vegetation, and subsist entirely upon vegetable food. The living species are now confined to the warmer parts of Africa and Asia, and are hairless or nearly so; but these animals formerly had a much more extensive range, not only in the Old World, but also in America. The best-known of the extinct species is R. tichorhinus, the woolly rhinoceros, which formerly ranged over Europe, including the British Isles. Of the existing one-horned species are the Indian rhinoceros, R. indicus or R. unicornis, which inhabits the warmer parts of Asia, attains a height of 5 feet, and has the horn short and stout; the Javan rhinoceros, R. sondaicus, or R. javanus, distinct from the Indian species, inhabiting Java, the Malay peninsula, etc.; the hairy-eared rhinoceros, R. lasiotis; and the African kobaoba, R. simus. The two-horned species include the Sumatran or Malaccan rhinoceros, R. suma-trensis; and the African keitloa, R. keitloa or bicornis. See also cut under Perissodactyla.n. [capitalized] [NL. (Linnæus, 1758).] The typical genus of Rhinocerotidæ, containing all the living and some of the extinct forms. See above.
