• Question from:Sara

More questions from our first grade class:

Why do rhinos have horns?

Thanks, 
1C

Horns and tusk have evolved repeatedly in hoofed mammals over the last 65 million years. They allow the animal to defend itself from predators, and perhaps to look more attractive or more intimidating to other members of its own species. These are probably the main reasons explaining why rhinos have horns.

While there are only five living species of rhino, there were a great deal more in the past, and by studying the fossils of these ancient rhinos we can see that horns evolved in rhinos on several different occasions. Some had one horn, some two, some had small horns, some had big horns. It seems that small, single horns were first to evolve, and they were probably used by males when fighting for mates and territory, and by females to protect their babies from predators. Some groups of rhinos moved out of the ancestral forest environment and onto open grasslands, and these rhinos now evolved much bigger, longer horns.

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  • University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
  • Posts: 159

Recent research indicates that the horns were first developed for sexual display and combat between males for mates. They were secondarily useful for defense. you can think of it tis way, baseball bats were invented to play baseball, to hit baseballs around, but they have also been found very useful for hitting people too by some of our more aggressive individuals with criminal inclinations.