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A 55 MILLION YEAR JOURNEY

Broadly speaking, the evolution of rhinos began, as with all life forms, soon after our planet was born. But it took an awfully long time before anything like the horned giants of today began to roam the plains and forests of the world.

In fact, Earth was already some 99 percent along its 4.5 billion year path to the present before the first creatures we can definitely place as the ancestors of rhinos emerged not long (in geological terms at least) after the demise of the dinosaurs. These forebears were the perissodactyls, odd-toed browsing mammals that loped onto the evolutionary stage about 55 million years ago. 

Quite when our human line and rhinos first intersected is uncertain, but archaeological finds suggest that it happened at least some 700,000 years ago. 

This short account follows the rhino’s long, eventful journey through numerous climatic changes and evolutionary adventures to face the challenge of all—surviving the Anthropocene, the age of Homo sapiens.

Updated date: September 11, 2022

100 million years ago—the decline and fall of the dinosaurs

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About 100 million years ago the age of the dinosaurs was in full swing.
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65 million years ago—the rise of the mammals

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Temperatures soon rose, and subtropical vegetation once again reached as far south as Patagonia.
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56 million years ago—a hot, hot world

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This was the Eocene Epoch, a time that stretched from 56–33.9 million years ago.
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48 million years ago—enter the rhinos

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Within a few million years the perissodactyls had split into two distinct lines: one embracing the horses and their relatives and the other which included the forbears of tapirs and rhinos.
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38 million years ago—the horse rhino

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For a while the perissodactyls were the most diverse and abundant herbivores in North America, Asia and Europe.
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34 million years ago—the hornless giant

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About 34 million years ago, the Circumpolar-Antarctic current formed, and global cooling accelerated.
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23 million years ago—the golden age of rhinos

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Around 23 million years ago the planet’s climate remained temperate and comparatively cool compared with the period soon after the demise of the dinosaurs.
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14 million years ago—the decline begins

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Rapid cooling returned around 14 million years ago, probably triggered by ocean circulation changes
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11 million years ago—Africa’s living rhinos emerge

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Then, about 11 million years ago, the northeastern parts of Africa split from Arabia as the Red Sea grew.
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2.5 million years ago—the Ice Age commeth

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About four to five million years ago, the Black Rhino line, by then specialist browsers, diverged from the White Rhino.
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12,000 BCE—a world reshaped

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About 12,000 years ago, the human population was no more than four million worldwide.
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