The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore is welcoming its newest addition, a Southern white rhino named Jaharo.
Jaharo was born at The Wilds, a private, non-profit conservation center in Cumberland, Ohio on September 28, 2012. He grew up in the white rhino herd and was transferred to the Maryland Zoo in November 2016.
He joins the zoo as a companion to Stubby, the Zoo's 22-year-old rhino.
Initial introductions with the zebra and the ostrich are being conducted; however Jaharo and Stubby have not yet been introduced physically to one another. They can hear and smell each other in the barn, and will be slowly introduced at first behind the scenes and eventually in the Watering Hole. For the time being, Jaharo can be seen from 10:00 am until lunchtime in the African Watering Hole.
White rhinos are not, in fact, white. In Afrikaans, a Dutch-based language spoken in many parts of southern Africa where the white rhino lives, the word for wide is “wiet.” Afrikaans speakers referred to the rhino as “wiet” because of its unusually wide, squared-off upper lip.
When English speakers moved to South Africa, they apparently misinterpreted what Afrikaans speakers were saying. They thought that the Afrikaans speakers were calling the rhinos “white” when in fact they were saying “wide.”
The Maryland Zoo has housed rhinos since the African Watering Hole opened in 1992.
