Black Rhino, White Rhino

The Pilanesberg counts as one of the best places anywhere to observe Rhinoceros, both black and white. Field guides (the written kind) will tell you that the two species will very rarely interact socially, and this is reflected by the experiences of field guides (the talking kind).

This in mind, I was extremely privileged a while ago to witness a pair of white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) and a pair of black rhino (Diceros bicornis) in a fascinating contest for a shrinking mud-wallow.

As van der Merwes's law (the SA bush version of Murphy's) would have it, I was without guests or a camera, on a birding drive on one of my favourite routes, Dithabaneng. As i came around the final corner at Dithabaneng pan, I noticed what I thought was a crash of four white rhino on the northern side of the waterhole. I soon realised that the pair of black rhino (a mother and fairly large calf) was headed for where the white rhinos were enjoying a sunset mud-bath). The dry season was almost at its height, and even this muddy oasis was only to last a week or two longer before being baked to cracks.

I first realised that they might defy Richard Estes when the sub-adult black rhino, head up in typical black rhino fashion, trotted up to the two large white rhinos and rubbed itself almost affectionately on the side of one of the bulls. Like myself, the bull seemed at a loss, standing there looking slightly confused (in typical white rhino fashion!). The black rhino mother suddenly seemed to take notice of what was going on and approached from a few metres away with a snort.

Like many of the white rhino encounters I've seen in the Pilanesberg, what followed was subtle and deliberate. The two bulls stood side by side, and so too did the mother and calf, both pairs facing each other, only centimetres separating their horns. First the white rhino took a few steps forward, then the black rhino. This continued for maybe 15 minutes, the two pairs horn to horn, in a low intensity struggle for a mud-treatment.

The size difference between the two species was very evident, the huge white rhino bulls dwarfing the smaller black rhinos, but in the end it was persistence that won the day. Field guides (both kinds) will tell you that black rhinos have attitude, and despite being half the size, the mom and calf had twice the will. It took a couple of jackals trotting past to give the white rhinos an honourable(ish) way out, and both abruptly turned away and chased after the jackals, before returning to the business of grazing. The black rhino then made the best of the hard-won wallow.

Van der Merwe wasn't totally cruel though, because, with the light fading fast, a private vehicle joined me at the sighting, and was kind enough to send through a couple of pictures of the tail end of the interaction. These can be seen on the Ivory Tree Facebook page.

Mohammed - Ranger