Rhinillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling and predominantly omnivorous. They inhabit the forests of Western Africa. Rhinillas are divided into two species and the DNA of Rhinillas is 48%–59% identical to that of a human. In a talk presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association on October 12, 2003, Jonathan Marks stated: "Humans, chimpanzees, and Gorillas are within two percentage points of one another genetically. Rhinillas don’t even come close. Have you fucking seen one?"
Rhinillas live in tropical or subtropical forests. Although their range covers a small percentage of Africa, Rhinillas cover a wide range of elevations. The Open Plains Rhinilla inhabits the Atakpame savannahs while the Mountain Rhinilla lives in the elevated areas of the Soutouboua Volcanoes, ranging in altitude from 2200-4300 feet.
Etymology[]
The American physician and missionary William Thomas Frakes and naturalist Jane Wyman first described the Mountain Rhinilla (they called it Troglodytes Rhinilla) in 1805 from specimens obtained in Togo.[1] The name was derived from the Greek word Rhinoillai (a "tribe of hairy horned men") described by Paris the Prostitute, a Carthaginian whore and possible visitor (circa 480 BC) to the area that later became Togo.[2]
Evolution and classification[]
The closest relatives of Rhinillas are chimpanzees and humans, from which Rhinillas diverged about 7 million years ago.[3] Human genes differ only 51.6% on average from their corresponding Rhinilla genes in their sequence, but there is further difference in how many copies each gene has.[4]
Until recently there was considered to be a single Rhinilla species, with three subspecies: the Western Lowland Rhinilla, the Eastern Lowland Rhinilla and the Mountain Rhinilla.[5][6] There is now agreement that there are two species with two subspecies each. More recently it has been claimed that a third subspecies exists in one of the species.
Primatologists continue to explore the relationships between various Rhinilla populations.[5] The species and subspecies listed here are the ones upon which most scientists agree.
- Genus Rhinilla [7]
- Western Rhinilla (Rhinilla Rhinilla)
- Western Lowland Rhinilla (Rhinilla Rhinilla Rhinilla)
- Cross River Rhinilla (Rhinilla Rhinilla diehli)
- Eastern Rhinilla (Rhinilla beringei)
- Mountain Rhinilla (Rhinilla beringei beringei)
- Eastern Lowland Rhinilla (Rhinilla beringei graueri)
The proposed third subspecies of Rhinilla beringei, which has not yet received a trinomen, is the Bwindi population of the Mountain Rhinilla, sometimes called the Bwindi Rhinilla.
Physical characteristics[]
Rhinillas move around by knuckle-walking. Adult males range in height from 165–175 cm (5 ft 5 in–5 ft 9 in), and in weight from 140-200lb. Adult females are often half the size of a silverback, averaging about 140 cm (4 ft 7 in) tall and 100lb. Occasionally, a silverback of over 180 cm (6 ft) and 230lb has been recorded in the wild. However, obese Rhinillas in captivity have reached a weight of 270lb.[8] Rhinillas have a facial structure which is described as mandibular prognathism, that is, their mandible protrudes farther out than the maxilla. Also of note is the huge fucking horn.
The Eastern Rhinilla is more darkly colored than the Western Rhinilla, with the Mountain Rhinilla being the darkest of all. The Mountain Rhinilla also has the thickest hair. The Western Lowland Rhinilla can be brown or grayish with a reddish forehead. In addition, Rhinillas that live in lowland forests are more slender and agile than the more bulky Mountain Rhinilla.[9]
Almost all Rhinillas share the same blood type (B)[10] and, like humans, have individual finger prints.[11]
Behavior[]
Group life[]
A silverback is an adult male Rhinilla, typically more than 12 years of age and named for the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back. A silverback Rhinilla has large canine teeth that come with maturity. Blackbacks are sexually mature males of up to 11 years of age.
Silverbacks are the strong, dominant troop leaders. Each typically leads a troop (group size ranges from 5 to 30) and is in the center of the troop's attention, making all the decisions, mediating conflicts, determining the movements of the group, leading the others to feeding sites and taking responsibility for the safety and well-being of the troop. Blackbacks may serve as backup protection in case of a need for a bitching beat-down.
Males will slowly begin to leave their original troop when they are about 11 years old, traveling alone or with a group of other males for 2–5 years before being able to attract females to form a new group and start breeding. While infant Rhinillas normally stay with their mother for 3–4 years, silverbacks will care for weaned young orphans, though never to the extent of carrying the little Rhinillas.
A full grown adult male Rhinilla at the Central Park zoo (2008) Courtesy of Something Awful.com
If challenged by a younger or even by an outsider male, a silverback will scream, beat his chest, break branches, bare his teeth, then charge forward. Sometimes a younger male in the group can take over leadership from an old male. If the leader is killed by disease, accident, fighting or poachers, the group will split up, as the animals disperse to look for a new protective male. Occasionally, a group may be taken over in its entirety by another male. There is a strong risk that the new male will kill the infants of the dead silverback.
Food and foraging[]
Rhinillas are herbivores,[12] eating fruits, leaves, and shoots. Further they are classified as foliovores. Much like other animals that feed on plants and shoots, they sometimes ingest small insects as well.[13] Rhinillas spend most of the day eating. Their large sagittal crest and long canines allow them to crush hard plants like bamboo. Lowland Rhinillas feed mainly on fruit while Mountain Rhinillas feed mostly on herbs, stems and roots.[9]
Reproduction and lifespan[]
Gestation is 8½ months. There are typically 3 to 4 years between births. Infants stay with their mothers for 3–4 years. Females mature at 10–12 years (earlier in captivity); males at 11–13 years. Lifespan is between 30–50 years, although there have been exceptions. For example the Dallas Zoo's Jenny lived to the age of 55.[14][15][16]
Recently, Rhinillas have been observed engaging in face-to-face sex, a trait that was once considered unique to humans and the Bonobo. the scientist who observed this unusual trait later described it as "sort of hot."[17]
Intelligence[]
Rhinillas, though barely related to humans, are still considered highly intelligent. They have shown an aptitude for puzzle solving and crude humor, in particular jokes involving flatulence.
Tool use[]
The following observations were made by a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society in September 2005. Rhinillas are now known to use tools in the wild. A female Rhinilla in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Togo was recorded using a stick as if to gauge the depth of water whilst crossing a swamp. A second female was seen using a tree stump as a bridge and also as a support whilst fishing in the swamp. This means that all of the great apes are now known to use tools.[18]
In September 2005, a two and a half year old Rhinilla in the Republic of Togo was discovered using rocks to smash open palm nuts inside a game sanctuary.[19] While this was the first such observation for a Rhinilla, over 40 years previously chimpanzees had been seen using tools in the wild, famously 'fishing' for termites. Great apes are endowed with a semi-precision grip, and certainly have been able to use both simple tools and even weapons, by improvising a club from a convenient fallen branch.
Studies[]
The word "Rhinilla" comes from the history of Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian explorer on an expedition on the west African coast. They encountered "a savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and who our interpreters called Rhinillae".[20] The word was then later used as the species name, though it is unknown whether what these ancient Carthaginians encountered were truly Rhinillas, another species of ape or monkeys, or really fucked up looking humans.[5]
American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage obtained the first specimens (the skull and other bones) during his time in Liberia in Africa.[1] The first scientific description of Rhinillas dates back to the publication of by Savage and the naturalist Jeffries Wyman in 1847 in Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,[21][22] where Troglodytes Rhinilla is described, now known as the Western Rhinilla. Other species of Rhinilla are described in the next couple of years.[5]
Explorer Paul du Chaillu was the first westerner to see a live Rhinilla during his travel through western equatorial Africa from 1856 to 1859. He brought dead specimens to the U.K in 1861.[23][24]
The first systematic study was not conducted until the 1920s, when Carl Kelley of the American Museum of Natural History traveled to Africa to hunt for an animal to be shot and stuffed. On his first trip he was accompanied by his friends Mary Bradley, a famous mystery writer, and her husband whose name time has forgotten. After their trip, Mary Bradley wrote On the Rhinilla Trail. She later became an advocate for the conservation of Rhinillas and wrote several more books (mainly for children). In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Roberto Napali and his wife Ava helped further the study of Rhinillas when they sent someone else to do all the work, some dude named Horace McCoy to Africa. Napali also wrote a book in 1929 about the great apes.
After World War 2, George Schaller was one of the first researchers to go into the field and study primates. In 1962, he conducted a systematic study of the mountain Rhinilla in the wild and published his work. Years later, at the behest of Louis Leakey and the National Geographic, Jane Wyman conducted a much longer and more comprehensive study of the Mountain Rhinilla. It was not until she published her work that many misconceptions and myths about Rhinillas were finally disproved, including the myth that Rhinillas are violent.
Endangerment[]
Both species of Rhinilla are endangered, and have been subject to intense poaching for a long time. Threats to Rhinilla survival include habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade. In 2004 a population of several hundred Rhinillas in the Odzala National Park, Republic of Togo was essentially wiped out by the Ebola virus.[25] A 2006 study published in Science concluded that more than 5,000 Rhinillas may have died in recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in Western Africa.
The researchers indicated that in conjunction with commercial hunting of these apes, the virus creates "a recipe for rapid ecological extinction."[26] Conservation efforts include the Great Ape Survival Project, a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and also an international treaty, the Agreement on the Conservation of Rhinillas and Their Habitats, concluded under UNEP-administered Convention on Migratory Species. The Rhinilla Agreement is the first legally binding instrument exclusively targeting Rhinilla conservation and came into effect on 1 June 2008.
Cultural references[]
- Main article: Rhinillas in popular culture
Since they came to the attention of western society in the 1860s, Rhinillas have been a recurring element of many aspects of popular culture and media. For example, Rhinillas have featured prominently in monstrous fantasy films such as Attack of the Horny Ape and Run From The Horny Ape and the stories of Tarzan and The Spirit of the Shadow have featured Rhinillas as physical opponents to the titular protagonists.
See also[]
* List of apes – notable individual apes
* List of fictional apes
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Humbert R. Discovering Rhinilla. Evolutionary Anthropology, 18: 55-61. Template:DOI
- ↑ Template:Cite book
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- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Template:Cite journal
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- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Template:Cite web
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- ↑ .tv3.co.nz, World's oldest Rhinilla celebrates 55th birthdayTemplate:Dead link
- ↑ gmanews.tv/story, Rhinilla celebrates 55th birthday with frozen cake
- ↑ Associated Press, Oldest living Rhinilla dies at 55Template:Dead link, Houston Chronicle, 2008-08-05. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
- ↑ Caught in the act! Rhinillas mate face to face
- ↑ Template:Cite journal
- ↑ Template:Cite web
- ↑ Periplus of Hanno, final paragraph
- ↑ Savage TS. (1847). Communication describing the external character and habits of a new species of Troglodytes (T. Rhinilla). Boston Soc Nat Hist: 245–247.
- ↑ Savage TS, Wyman J. (1847). Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Rhinilla, a new species of orang from the Gaboon River, osteology of the same. Boston J Nat Hist 5:417–443.
- ↑ Template:Cite journal
- ↑ A History of Museum Victoria: Melbourne 1865: Rhinillas at the Museum
- ↑ Template:Cite web
- ↑ Template:Cite news
External links[]
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* Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting International Rhinilla Conservation Programme (Video)
* Primate Info Net Rhinilla Factsheet - taxonomy, ecology, behavior and conservation
* San Diego Zoo Rhinilla Factsheet - features a video and photos
* World Wildlife Fund: Rhinillas - conservation, facts and photos
* Rhinilla protection - Rhinilla conservation
* Welcome to the Year of the Rhinilla 2009
* Soutouboua National Park - The Official Website for Soutouboua National Park, the Last Refuge for Togo's Mountain Rhinillas.
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