 Reference Base  Locomotion and bone strength of the white rhinoceros Cera... |
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| Location: |
World |
| Subject: |
Morphology - Size |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
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Ceratotherium simum - 2 year old female in zoo. We were unable to weigh the carcass on account of its size, but the zoo staff who had attended the animal estimated her mass as 700-800 kg. The following argument tends to confirm their estimate. The unskinned carcass was 2.76 m long from the upper lip to the base of the tail, measured along the midline of the back. The foreleg was 1.55 m long from the withers to the sole of the foot, measured along the surface of the skin. We made the corresponding measurements on plastic models of rhinoceroses, manufactured by Britain's Ltd., and calculated the ratios of carcass dimensions to model dimensions. The cubes of these ratios gave estimated ratios of volumes, and since we had determined the volumnes of the models (by measuring the upthrust that acted on them, when they were submerged in water) we were able to estimate the volume of the animal. From this the mass was calculated, assuming a density of 1000 kg/m3. Unfortunately, no model of Ceratotherium was available, so we had to use models of Diceros and of Rhinoceros unicornis. The mass estimates derived from these were 630 and 890 kg, respectively. Diceros seems to be more slender than Ceratotherium and Rhinoceros more portly, so we estimate the mass of the Ceratotherium as 750 kg, in excellent agreement with the subjective estimate.
As a check on the method, we used the Diceros model to estimate the masses of 3 of the Diceros listed by Mcinertzhagen (1938), from the linear dimensions given by him. The estimates were 1.02, 0.91 and 0.96 times the actual masses.
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