White rhinos wallow in mud baths to protect their skin and control their body temperature.
Because rhinos are mostly hairless mammals, they wallow in mud baths to protect their skin from the sun and help regulate their body temperature. They wallow most often when it’s hot.
White rhinos also dust bathe in sand baths during the winter, rub and scratch themselves against objects, regularly visit salt licks, and readily enter swamps. They rarely take water baths. They can cool off by sweating, too, thereby losing moisture which they have to make up by drinking or by browsing water-rich plants.
• Image | © Gerry Zambonini, Some Rights Reserved (CC BY-SA 2.0)
• Sources | (Dulal, 2017; Estes, 1991; Groves, 1972; Rachlow, Berkeley, & Berger, 1998)
