The Black Rhinoceros of Africa not only looks somewhat like an animated army tank, he frequently acts like one. His massive body is covered with a very thick skin, suggestive of armor plate, and he is armed with two great horns, the larger of which may extend more than four feet. With this horn the black rhino has been known to attack almost everything it encounters, up to and including locomotives.
Despite his bulk and clumsy appearance, the rhino possesses amazing agility. He can charge at 30 miles per hour, but if he misses his target, he can wheel quickly for another attack. He can also clamber nimbly up steep slopes.
Added to this potential for trouble is the rhino’s pugnacious instinct to attack whatever seems threatening. He “hits first, and asks questions later,” as the saying goes. Rhinos have been known to suddenly attack antelopes, among which they had been peaceably grazing, without apparent provocation. Equally, they have been known to abruptly charge bushes and trees which caught their attention. One game warden in Kenya rescued a rhino which was stuck in a mud-hole, only to see the ungrateful beast cave in the side of his vehicle immediately afterwards.
Yet, there is a reason for the rhino’s belligerence. If he were human, he would be considered legally blind. Thus he tends to be frequently surprised when strange objects intrude within the narrow range of vision, and his instinctive reaction to the unknown is to attack without hesitation. If his eyesight were better, he would doubtless be more peaceable toward non-threatening objects.
Strangely, the rhino is regarded as one of the most easily tamable wild animals in Africa. Once penned and given time to acquaint himself with his unchanging surroundings, he becomes gentle enough to eat out of is keeper’s hand. Captive rhinos love to have their ears rubbed, and some have bee taught to roll over on their backs to have their tummies scratched. This tremendous change in behavior helps confirm that it is distrust of the unknown that is largely responsible for their pugnacity.
Rhinos have no natural enemies except man – but that one enemy is enough to have endangered the continuance of the species. Many Asiatic peoples have long believed that powdered rhinoceros horn is a powerful aphrodisiac, able to enhance man’s sexual prowess. In 1965, for example, one kilogram of an Asiatic rhino horn sold for $1,125. For this reason, there is a flourishing, though illegal, trade in rhino horns, and poachers are steadily pushing the rhino toward extinction.
The horn of the rhinoceros is indeed a wonder, though it has never been proved to actually possess and aphrodisiacal powers. Unlike the horns of other animals, rhino horn is composed of tightly compressed hairs! Most species of rhino have very little hair on their bodies – it is all concentrated in the horns. It is amazing that the hundreds and hundreds of individual hairs can cling to each other so tightly that together they can challenge iron and steel – and win!
How did the rhino horn develop? Did the body hairs of a early-day rhinoceros decide they would better serve the animal if they clumped together to form a horn? How could such a thing evolve?
The answer is, it could not have evolved. There is no way that normal body hairs could have migrated millimeter by millimeter, over many millenia, and then reached out to cling to each other in tight embrace, so as to form the rhinoceros horn. The horn would have been utterly useless until both sufficient numbers of hairs had arrived to achieve density, and they had somehow been enabled to fuse together in layers. The intervening thousands of generations would have been defenseless – but if they had succeeded without the horn or horns (some species have only one), there would have been no demand for horns to develop.
Instead, the rhinoceros has always had the horns he now has, as original equipment. They are one of the basic parts of the rhino, and all his elements – armor-plate hide, weak eyes, short temper, massive build, etc. – were put together by the Creator as it pleased Him to do so.
Who is this Creator God? He is “The God who made the world and all things in it… he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.” (Acts 17:24-25) He is the God who gives food to the lions: As the Bible says, “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God.” (Psalm 104:21) He is the God who made us, as the Bible also records: “…It is he who has made us, and we are his…” (Psalm 100:3)
But He is so much more than merely Creator, though His creation is marvelous in our eyes. He is also the Judge of all the earth. And He also loves as a father loves. As the Bible says, “Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh [that is, God] has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust… But Yahweh’s [God’s] loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting with those who fear him…” (Psalm 103:13-14, 17)
Let us learn reverence for Him as obedient children, that we may abide forever in his loving mercy.
(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)