Drastic situations call for drastic measures.
And for wild animals like white rhinos, never is this more true than at the end of a long hard dry season, when the grass cover is almost entirely reduced.
Ranger Guy Brunskill recently captured this footage of a white rhino breaking from its traditional diet:
One can clearly see the rhino eating wood chips that it had broken off from a dead log.
This type of behaviour, although not often seen, is not altogether unheard of in nature; many animals augment a deficiency in their diets by turning to alternative sources.
Giraffes eat bones for extra calcium, leopard tortoises nibble on hyena scat – also for calcium – and a number of species exhibit geophagia – the eating of dirt – to supplement minerals that may be lacking in their normal diet.
As we approach the end of the dry season and conditions become harsher and harsher, we may well be seeing more examples of this type of behaviour, and not just from rhinos.
Has anyone seen anything similar?
I hope that you aren’t heading into a drought like the one that basically decimated the buffalo herds! I have never seen a rhino eating wood chips. Hope the rains come soon. Victoria
Hi Victoria, we hope we aren’t either! The start of the rainy season is imminent though so we’ll know in a few months what we’ve got and what next year might look like…
James, great video – I have never seen a Rhino eating wood chips, I hope the rain comes soon!
If I remember correctly, is this the rhino I’ve heard referred to as B10?
Hi Shari,
We don’t name any of our individuals so I couldn’t comment on that. Where have you seen that reference to a rhino?
Best regards
Fascinating article and illustrative video. I guess I’m not surprised by the addition of wood chips to a rhino’s diet when tender grasses are no longer available Hopefully the rains will arrive and the drought word will disappear. Thanks James!
Absolutely facinating video, and no, I’ve never seen wood being eaten like this. Quiet desperation calls for much ingenuity.
I have never seen this before! Fascinating!
This is indeed unexpected. Elephants strip the bark of the trees but I have never seen a rhino eating bark. Nature never cease to amaze.
I definitely haven’t heard of a white rhino eating wood!!