Odd-toed Ungulate

Like most red-blooded Americans, I am finding myself thinking about rhinos today.

Top Three Facts:
1. Rhinoceros horns, unlike those of other horned mammals, consist of keratin, densely compacted hair
2. A group of rhinoceros is called a "crash"
3. The horn of the Rhino is not attached to the skull

"The Rhinoceros" (1515), by Dürer. In 1515 the German artist Albrecht Dürer made a woodcut of a rhinoceros, an ominous-looking creature with a sharply pointed horn on its snout. It wore a duded-up suit of armor from which emerged four scaly legs with cloven feet. Dürer had never seen the real thing; neither had most other Europeans. But his widely distributed image, conjured up from descriptions of an actual beast given to King Manuel I of Portugal by the governor of his Indian territories, was accepted in Europe for more than 200 years. It even inspired part of the design for a bronze door at the cathedral of Pisa in 1602. (The real rhinoceros, dispatched as a gift to Pope Leo X, could not serve as a reality check because it went down with the ship transporting it to Italy.)

I think it is pretty amazing Durer came up with the woodcut above without ever having laid eyes on a rhinoceros. Well, at least I think it is impressive. Come to think of it, I've never laid eyes on a rhino either. For all I know the existence of rhinoceros could be an elaborate hoax, a crazy conservation money scheme.

I do think there should be more in the way of elaborate hoaxes.

But anyway, in my thinking about rhinos, I did find that "rhinomania" was enjoyed in Europe in the eighteenth century due to an early marketing campaign. There is a book about it titled CLARA'S GRAND TOUR: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe by Glynis Ridley. Apparently, according to one review, "fashionable people started to accessorize their hair, clothes and carriages a la rhinoceros, using
feathers and ribbons to simulate Clara's body parts." Book summary:

For nearly 20 years in the mid-1700s, a 3-ton Indian rhino named Clara
traveled Europe--from Rotterdam to Breslau, Naples, Marseilles, and many
places in between. Making this an even more amazing achievement is that
it happened before railways and modern roads existed. Clara, orphaned
when she was only months old, was hand raised by a Dutch merchant in
Assam, India. When she was 3 years old, a Dutch sea captain brought her
to Europe. There, she became a sensation. In one of the first marketing
campaigns of all time, her owner promoted Clara's appearances to
peasants and royalty alike. Both came to see her. There were Clara
product tie-ins galore: poems, songs, fashions, portraits, etchings, and
bronze figurines. Her image adorned everything from tin coins to fine
porcelain, and a fortune for the Dutch captain.