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You are here: Home / Animals / How Did the Rhinoceros Get Its Name and Why Are Rhinos Not Classified In the Order Artiodactyla With Hippos?

How Did the Rhinoceros Get Its Name and Why Are Rhinos Not Classified In the Order Artiodactyla With Hippos?

March 21, 2020 by Karen Hill

The Rhinoceros, also known as rhino for short, is a name used to group five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family rhinocerotidae.

how did the rhinoceros get its name

The word rhinoceros comes from the Greek words ῥῑνο-, (rhino-), meaning nose, and κέρας (keras), meaning horn.

The plural for rhinoceros in English is rhinoceroses, and a group of rhinoceros is called a crash or herd.

The order Artiodactyla consists of mammals that have an even number of toes on each hoof.

These include sheep, goats, cows, deer, antelope, and giraffes. It doesn’t include the rhino because it’s an odd-toed hoofed mammal.

The rhinoceros belongs to the order Perissodactyla.

The rhinoceros is often killed for its horns which are made of keratin, also found in our hair and fingernails.

Both the African Rhinoceros and the Sumatran Rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan Rhinoceros have a single horn.

Two Toes Good, One Toe Bad.

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Filed Under: Animals

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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