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White Rhinoceros v African Forest Elephant
Topic Started: Jan 28 2012, 01:31 PM (22,335 Views)
Taipan
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White Rhinoceros - Ceratotherium simum
The White Rhinoceros or Square-lipped rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is one of the five species of rhinoceros that still exist. It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. White Rhinoceroses are found in grassland and savannah habitat. Herbivore grazers that eat grass, preferring the shortest grains, the White Rhinoceros is one of the largest pure grazers. White Rhinoceroses produce sounds which include a panting contact call, grunts and snorts during courtship, squeals of distress, and deep bellows or growls when threatened. Threat displays (in males mostly) include wiping its horn on the ground and a head-low posture with ears back, combined with snarl threats and shrieking if attacked. The White Rhinoceros is quick and agile and can run 50 km/h (31 mph). The White Rhinoceros is the world's largest land mammal after the three species of elephant. It has a massive body and large head, a short neck and broad chest. The head and body length is 3.4 to 4.2 m (11 to 14 ft), with the tail adding another 37 to 71 cm (15 to 28 in). Shoulder height is 1.5 to 2 m (4 ft 10 in to 6 ft 7 in). Weight in this animal typically ranges from 1,360 to 3,630 kg (3,000 to 8,000 lb). The male, averaging 2,300 kg (5,100 lb) is slightly heavier than the female, at an average of 1,700 kg (3,700 lb). The largest recorded White Rhinoceros was about 4,500 kg (9,900 lb). On its snout it has two horn-like growths, one behind the other. These are made of solid keratin, in which they differ from the horns of bovids (cattle and their relatives), which are keratin with a bony core, and deer antlers, which are solid bone. The front horn is larger and averages 90 cm (35 in) in length, reaching as much as 150 cm (59 in).

Posted Image

African Forest Elephant - Loxodonta cyclotis
The African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) is a forest dwelling elephant of the Congo Basin. Formerly considered either a synonym or a subspecies of the African Savanna Elephant (Loxodonta africana), a 2010 study established that the two are distinct species. These forest-dwelling elephants are smaller and darker than their savanna relatives and have smaller and characteristically rounded ears. The upper lip and nose are elongated into a trunk that is more hairy than that of the savanna elephants'. The male African Forest Elephant rarely exceed 2.5 metres (8 ft) in height, while the African Bush Elephant is usually over 3 meters (just under 10 feet) and sometimes almost 4 meters (13 ft) tall. With regard to the number of toenails: the African Bush Elephant normally has 4 toenails on the frontfoot and 3 on the hindfoot, the African Forest Elephant normally has 5 toenails on the frontfoot and 4 on the hindfoot (like the Asian elephant), but hybrids between the two species occur.
Male shoulder height: up to 2.5 m
Weight 2.7 - 6 tonnes

Posted Image

___________________________________________________________________

Gregoire
 
African Forest elephant vs White rhino
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Ursus 21
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Quote:
 
Female asian elephants can have tusks, but they're tiny, so essentially for combat & or defense against a bull tusker, they're sitting ducks.
Okay, I still believe that females are able to create a substantial amount of resistance forces, and they would have fought back with their bulk and their trunk. I wouldn't call them sitting ducks, and the fact that the bull killed 12 of them in such a short time period speaks well for how much damage those tusks can cause.

Hence, I posted it.

Quote:
 
The trunk is impressive & much stronger then one would think, but against a tank of a rhinoceros of a similar body mass & with a pedestrian height advantage compared to it's savanna cousin, I'm not so sure.
Remember that the elephant would make an effort to protect its vital organs and inner structures when fighting, as would any animal. It can lower its head to cover its throat. If the rhino tries to come from underneath the chin, that would put the rhino in range to be attacked by the elephant's downward-facing tusks.

Even if the rhino's horn did make contact with the neck, I doubt it would go through the elephant's hide like a needle.

Have a look at this fight between a white rhino and a cape buffalo much smaller than itself:

Posted Image

Video: https://youtu.be/lppidNnV3qY

As far as I could tell, the rhino's horn failed to pierce the skin of an opponent less than half its size. The rhino was getting underneath the buffalo with its horn and it failed to cause serious damage. Therefore, even if the rhino did get a throat shot on the elephant with its horn, I think that action is very unlikely to result in a fatality.

Quote:
 
The cow rhino went for the bull elephant's throat, but due to the height advantage she could not reach, again a height advantage that the forest elephant does not enjoy to the extent of the bush elephant.
Good videos.

I am now convinced that the rhino could possibly go for the throat, but as I said earlier, this is very unlikely to be a decisive move. If that elephant were to be a lot shorter in that fight with the rhino, that attack wouldn't have killed it either. The horn didn't even pierce any part of the elephant's skin throughout that fight. Compounding that, the elephant would defend its vulnerable spots.

Quote:
 
These postings are repetition at best, the point is that some of these rhinos as I noted suffered internal injuries that could only be "caused by a much larger animal". Now tell me what's the physical differences between the bush & forest varieties?
The purpose for posting these photos and information was to correct you; when you insinuated that elephants were mostly crushing rhinos with their great size, but they were not.

They were using their tusks to kill rhinos.

Quote:
 
The rhino stood his ground against a group of elephants, I saw no "hastily retreat", I saw mutual respect.

The relevance is we've seen instances where matriarch's go nuts, here for exmaple:
Okay, so, what insight does this video give us about a fight to the death between two healthy and aggressive males?

We've got a female elephant and a male rhino being a bit cautious towards one another. Okay.

Furthermore, of course rhinos are a bigger threat to elephants than cape buffalo. Hence, elephants may be a little more cautious when attacking rhinos than cape buffalo.

You've shown me that sometimes an elephant will act cautiously around a rhino, and that it may charge and kill a buffalo.

What relevance does this have to this hypothetical?

Btw, sorry if this comes off as 'repetition' but did you read this?

Quote:
 
36 endangered rhinos killed by young elephants

Posted Image
Clashes between elephants and rhinos are not uncommon.

Aggressive young orphaned elephants are reported to have killed 36 rhinos, including rare black ones, in a game park in eastern South Africa.

According to conservationists, the young elephants have been provoking confrontations with the rhinos since they were introduced to Hluhluwe-Umofolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal.

The elephants were orphaned when their parents were culled in the early 1990s in an effort to control the elephant population in Kruger National Park.

As they have matured, so they have become more aggressive.

Attacks on rhinos have been growing over the past two years, with 13 killed, including two black rhino, in the last five months of 1999, South African newspapers report.

Spate of killings

A park ranger said he had witnessed an elephant knocking a rhino over, trampling it and driving a tusk through its chest.

Conservation vet Dave Cooper said: "There was a spate of killings, and it was as if they were purposeful. The rhinos were ripped to pieces."

An endangered species - especially in Hluhluwe-Umofolozi Park
He said that elephant and rhino routinely clash in nature "but this sort of behaviour, when elephant actively go out and chase rhino, is totally abnormal".

Fellow conservationist Tony Conway said similarly aggressive behaviour had also been seen in Pilanesberg National Park in Northwest Province - another home for the Kruger Park orphaned elephants.

However, the killings at Pilanesberg stopped when six adult elephant bulls were introduced to the park. The young ones' behaviour patterns returned to normal under their influence.

Officials at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park have asked Kruger Park to send it 10 adult bulls in the hope that their presence will have the same effect on the young elephants there.

The park's top attractions are its rhino - both the white or square-lipped rhino and the rarer black or hooked-lipped rhino.

There are only about 1,000 black rhino left in South Africa.


Source: Elephants kill the endangered rhinos

These elephants were young bulls, and they were killing rhinos with confidence.

Taipan is right, a mature forest elephant can rival a young bush elephant in size, and young elephants are not properly filled out or at their physical prime in a way that adult elephants are.

The elephant wins here.

Young, orphaned bush elephants were killing rhinos with impunity.

A mature forest elephant can definitely rival a young bush elephant in size, and I am therefore heavily inclined to favour the elephant here.

Any counterarguments?



Edited by Ursus 21, Apr 11 2018, 04:45 PM.
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221Extra
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Ursus 21, did you miss the account I referenced of a white rhino bull killing a hippo bull? I decided to screenshot that way you and others may see it easier:

Posted Image
(Credit goes to Kifaru)
http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/ref_files/1181457023.pdf

As you can see these horns are also devastating weapons.

Also as I let Hash Singing Slasher know earlier read these profiles, they're filled with great info (esp from Kifaru on white rhino), going around tying to pass this cape buffalo vid still even after I referenced account and profile makes him look disingenuous IMO.

The rest of your post I will address either later today or tomorrow.
Edited by 221Extra, Apr 12 2018, 12:23 AM.
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Ursus 21
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Interesting account.

Do you have any idea why one rhino can gore a hippo to death with just a couple of charges but another rhino, even after repeated tossing and goring, can't even pierce the skin of a cape buffalo?

Is it up to circumstance?

Are some rhinos much better at goring or have much sharper horns than other rhinos?

Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter, there must be quite a bit of intraspecific variation going on here.

Either way, I did miss that account earlier, so cheers for re-posting it.
Edited by Ursus 21, Apr 12 2018, 12:55 AM.
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Lightning
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221Extra
Apr 12 2018, 12:20 AM
Also as I let Hash Singing Slasher know earlier read these profiles, they're filled with great info (esp from Kifaru on white rhino), going around tying to pass this cape buffalo vid still even after I referenced account and profile makes him look disingenuous IMO.
While I did say that I won't post on this thread anymore, I'm going to have to respond to this.

Like I said many times before, I consider videos far more reliable than eye witness accounts.

With the rhino vs buffalo videos, both the one I posted earlier on and also the one Ursus posted later, we know for sure that it happened since we saw it with our own eyes.

However, in regards to the rhino killing the hippo, it's just an eye witness account, we cannot see it ourselves and, hence, we cannot know for sure whether it really happened or not.

Rhino failing to quickly kill buffalo: we know for sure it happened and happened twice.

Rhino killing hippo: we don't know for sure whether it really happened or not. It's up to the readers whether they want to believe it or not.

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Sam1
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..I wasn't paying much attention to this thread, as I feel it is beyond debate for me.
But since responses have piled up, I'll just give a brief sum ups:
- the rhino is obviously way more powerfully built pound for pound - I hope this doesn't need further explanation - and since these two are in the same size ballpark, the Rhino is a more powerful and durable animal.
- the horn tip is more deadly than two tusk tips, kinda like a spear is more deadly than a fork.
221Extra gave a valid point about wrestling/controlling the opponent though. In that respect the tusks are more effective

As for all the accounts of bush elephants killing rhinos..I just don't get it..trolling or what?
A bush elephant is almost 3x the size of forest elephant and would absolutely smash it with ease in a fight.
Edited by Sam1, Apr 12 2018, 04:55 AM.
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221Extra
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Ursus 21
Apr 11 2018, 04:40 PM


Even if the rhino's horn did make contact with the neck, I doubt it would go through the elephant's hide like a needle.

It depends on the rhino's horn & the aggression with with it attacks. An upward's thrust powered by the white rhino's ridiculous neck muscles to the throat of the forest elephant would be devastating. Ala the attack on the hippo which has even thicker skin than elephants. And to each other, where

"Fighting between territorial bulls accounts for 50% of mortalities."
http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/125/1250327632.pdf

Ursus 21
Apr 11 2018, 04:40 PM
Quote:
 
The cow rhino went for the bull elephant's throat, but due to the height advantage she could not reach, again a height advantage that the forest elephant does not enjoy to the extent of the bush elephant.
Good videos.

I am now convinced that the rhino could possibly go for the throat, but as I said earlier, this is very unlikely to be a decisive move. If that elephant were to be a lot shorter in that fight with the rhino, that attack wouldn't have killed it either. The horn didn't even pierce any part of the elephant's skin throughout that fight. Compounding that, the elephant would defend its vulnerable spots.

The elephant's height was a little too great & the rhino's horn not long enough. A mature bull with a decent horn would have the the advantage against a forest elephant bull. I hate to sound like a broken record here, but forest elephants are significantly smaller than bush elephant bulls.

Ursus 21
Apr 11 2018, 04:40 PM
Quote:
 
These postings are repetition at best, the point is that some of these rhinos as I noted suffered internal injuries that could only be "caused by a much larger animal". Now tell me what's the physical differences between the bush & forest varieties?
The purpose for posting these photos and information was to correct you; when you insinuated that elephants were mostly crushing rhinos with their great size, but they were not.

They were using their tusks to kill rhinos.

Yes, I never stated all these rhinos were killed by internal injuries via crushing, but the point is clear, they were attacked by a much larger bush elephant, again which the forest elephant is not.

Ursus 21
Apr 11 2018, 04:40 PM
Quote:
 
The rhino stood his ground against a group of elephants, I saw no "hastily retreat", I saw mutual respect.

The relevance is we've seen instances where matriarch's go nuts, here for exmaple:
Okay, so, what insight does this video give us about a fight to the death between two healthy and aggressive males?

We've got a female elephant and a male rhino being a bit cautious towards one another. Okay.

Furthermore, of course rhinos are a bigger threat to elephants than cape buffalo. Hence, elephants may be a little more cautious when attacking rhinos than cape buffalo.

You've shown me that sometimes an elephant will act cautiously around a rhino, and that it may charge and kill a buffalo.

What relevance does this have to this hypothetical?

You & other's supporting the forest elephant would do better to use accounts of cow bush elephants besting white rhinos, as there size is definitely much closer to that of a 'mature forest elephant bull'. Do you now see the correlation?
Ursus 21
Apr 11 2018, 04:40 PM


Btw, sorry if this comes off as 'repetition' but did you read this?

Quote:
 
36 endangered rhinos killed by young elephants

Posted Image
Clashes between elephants and rhinos are not uncommon.

Aggressive young orphaned elephants are reported to have killed 36 rhinos, including rare black ones, in a game park in eastern South Africa.

According to conservationists, the young elephants have been provoking confrontations with the rhinos since they were introduced to Hluhluwe-Umofolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal.

The elephants were orphaned when their parents were culled in the early 1990s in an effort to control the elephant population in Kruger National Park.

As they have matured, so they have become more aggressive.

Attacks on rhinos have been growing over the past two years, with 13 killed, including two black rhino, in the last five months of 1999, South African newspapers report.

Spate of killings

A park ranger said he had witnessed an elephant knocking a rhino over, trampling it and driving a tusk through its chest.

Conservation vet Dave Cooper said: "There was a spate of killings, and it was as if they were purposeful. The rhinos were ripped to pieces."

An endangered species - especially in Hluhluwe-Umofolozi Park
He said that elephant and rhino routinely clash in nature "but this sort of behaviour, when elephant actively go out and chase rhino, is totally abnormal".

Fellow conservationist Tony Conway said similarly aggressive behaviour had also been seen in Pilanesberg National Park in Northwest Province - another home for the Kruger Park orphaned elephants.

However, the killings at Pilanesberg stopped when six adult elephant bulls were introduced to the park. The young ones' behaviour patterns returned to normal under their influence.

Officials at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park have asked Kruger Park to send it 10 adult bulls in the hope that their presence will have the same effect on the young elephants there.

The park's top attractions are its rhino - both the white or square-lipped rhino and the rarer black or hooked-lipped rhino.

There are only about 1,000 black rhino left in South Africa.


Source: Elephants kill the endangered rhinos

These elephants were young bulls, and they were killing rhinos with confidence.

Taipan is right, a mature forest elephant can rival a young bush elephant in size, and young elephants are not properly filled out or at their physical prime in a way that adult elephants are.

The elephant wins here.

Young, orphaned bush elephants were killing rhinos with impunity.

A mature forest elephant can definitely rival a young bush elephant in size, and I am therefore heavily inclined to favour the elephant here.

Any counterarguments?



Please read what I highlighted in yellow, does that sound like an animal of similar size to a forest elephant?
You & Taipan are mistaken to use accounts of larger bush elephant bulls killing white rhino as some smoking gun for forest elephant superiority over the rhinoceros.

This does not look like a forest elephant sized bush elephant:

Posted Image

Per Mammuthus's source:

Mammuthus
Mar 29 2018, 12:59 AM
Hash Slinging Slasher
Mar 28 2018, 07:19 AM
Mammuthus
Mar 28 2018, 06:14 AM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
Can you post a source about the weight of the forest elephants pls?
Sure, here you go:

"No study has focused on the body mass of L. cyclotis, but an average African forest elephant male of 220 cm at the shoulders should be around 2000 kg as its body shape is very similar to that of L. africana."
https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app61/app001362014.pdf

Also, I scaled out what they all 3 species of Elephant' should look like when compared to each other:
Posted Image
Worth noting that the Forest elephant should be taken with a grain of salt. So yeah, basically that comparison you commented on is definitely more accurate than one would think.


Edited by 221Extra, Apr 12 2018, 02:59 PM.
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