Rhinoceros unicornis

The Indian rhinoceros, also known as the greater one-horned rhinoceros, great Indian rhinoceros or Indian rhino, is a rhinoceros species native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the second largest living rhinoceros and the largest in Asia, with adult males weighing 2.07–2.2 t and adult females 1.6 t. Its thick skin is grey-brown with pinkish skin folds. It has a single horn on its snout that grows up to 57.2–61.6 cm (22.5–24.3 in) long. Its upper legs and shoulders are covered in wart-like bumps, and it is nearly hairless aside from the eyelashes, ear fringes and tail brush.

Rhinoceros unicornis

Mayank1704 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
Indian rhinocerosPBDB
Sits inside
RhinocerosPBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Rhinoceros
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Rhinoceros
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 645 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pliocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesPleistocene — about 7 of 7 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 7 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences774 ka129 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

7 occurrences of Rhinoceros unicornis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

7 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Miliolite — 21.20°N, 72.11°E

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The named rock units Rhinoceros unicornis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhinoceros unicornis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Rhinoceros unicornis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

108 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Rhinoceros unicornis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

5 references

Each of the 7 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Rhinoceros unicornis

Credit
Mayank1704
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itRhinoceros through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758