The 75kg bundle of joy
Apr. 6th, 2003 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyreI imagine she weighs almost 300kg now.
Her mum is Sabie and her dad is the famous Memphis. Memphis weighs 3 tonnes or so. One day I was wheeling a barrow full of oryx poop along behind his enclosure (back then the rhino area was half the size because only Memphis was in it and the other half was the oryx enclosure). Because he's only kept in at the back by the large poles he can stick his head right through. This day he decided we wanted to knock over the wheelbarrow full of oryx poo. Damned if I was gonna let him. I won a battle with a 3 tonne rhino *cheers*. I love telling that story. There is also a quote that goes with it that Matt loves. It came from one of the keepers "Memphis just wants to play, the problem is Memphis is a three tonne rhino".
The white rhinocerous is one of the most endangered species of rhino (the most endangered in Africa, the other species being the slightly more common black rhino). They are often a grey or reddish colour (due to the mud they wallow in), not white at all. So why are they called white you ask? It's actually a mistranslation from Afrikaans to English . They meant "wide" not "white" as in "wide mouth". The way you tell white and black rhinos apart (apart from the fact that the white is slightly larger and lives in a different area) is to look at the mouth. The black rhino has a hooked top lip for plucking and eating browse off trees. The white rhino has a straight mouth, perfect for grazing.
The other photo I took of her last time I visited. She has a bad habit of hiding.
Yeah those piles are probably what you think they are...
This is from the article in the zoo's magazine about her.
And while we're on the subject of baby rhinos. This photo was taken a few years back at Dubbo Zoo of the then baby black rhino. That blob near the mother is the baby.
Her mum is Sabie and her dad is the famous Memphis. Memphis weighs 3 tonnes or so. One day I was wheeling a barrow full of oryx poop along behind his enclosure (back then the rhino area was half the size because only Memphis was in it and the other half was the oryx enclosure). Because he's only kept in at the back by the large poles he can stick his head right through. This day he decided we wanted to knock over the wheelbarrow full of oryx poo. Damned if I was gonna let him. I won a battle with a 3 tonne rhino *cheers*. I love telling that story. There is also a quote that goes with it that Matt loves. It came from one of the keepers "Memphis just wants to play, the problem is Memphis is a three tonne rhino".
The white rhinocerous is one of the most endangered species of rhino (the most endangered in Africa, the other species being the slightly more common black rhino). They are often a grey or reddish colour (due to the mud they wallow in), not white at all. So why are they called white you ask? It's actually a mistranslation from Afrikaans to English . They meant "wide" not "white" as in "wide mouth". The way you tell white and black rhinos apart (apart from the fact that the white is slightly larger and lives in a different area) is to look at the mouth. The black rhino has a hooked top lip for plucking and eating browse off trees. The white rhino has a straight mouth, perfect for grazing.
The other photo I took of her last time I visited. She has a bad habit of hiding.
Yeah those piles are probably what you think they are...
This is from the article in the zoo's magazine about her.
And while we're on the subject of baby rhinos. This photo was taken a few years back at Dubbo Zoo of the then baby black rhino. That blob near the mother is the baby.
