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 loped onto the evolutionary stage. This is a brief history of the rhino’s emergence some 55 million years ago, and its subsequent journey through countless climatic changes and extinction bottlenecks to face the challenges of the present.
100 million years ago—the decline and fall of the dinosaurs
65 million years ago—the rise of the mammals
56 million years ago—a hot, hot world
48 million years ago—enter the rhinos
38 million years ago—the horse rhino
34 million years ago—the hornless giant
23 million years ago—the golden age of rhinos
14 million years ago—the decline begins
11 million years ago—the ancestors of Africa’s extant rhinos emerge
2.5 million years ago—the Ice Age commeth
12,000 BCE—a world reshaped
