Its upper legs and shoulders are covered in wart-like bumps, and it is nearly hairless aside from the eyelashes, ear fringes and tail brush.

The Indian rhinoceros is native to the Indo-Gangetic Plain and occurs in 12 protected areas in northern India and southern Nepal.

It is a grazer, eating mainly grass, but also twigs, leaves, branches, shrubs, flowers, fruits and aquatic plants.

Several specimens were described since the end of the 18th century under different scientific names, which are all considered synonyms of Rhinoceros unicornis today:[3] The generic name rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek: ῥινόκερως, which is composed of ῥινο- (rhino-, "of the nose") and κέρας (keras, "horn") with a horn on the nose.

[11] The earliest representatives of the modern Indian rhinoceros appeared during the Early Pleistocene (2.6-0.8 million years ago).

Fossils indicate that the Indian rhinoceros during the Pleistocene also inhabited areas considerably further east of its current distribution, including mainland Southeast Asia, South China and the island of Java, Indonesia.

[15][14] Among terrestrial land mammals native to Asia, Indian rhinos are second in size only to the Asian elephant.

[22] On the former abundance of the species, Thomas C. Jerdon wrote in 1867:[23] This huge rhinoceros is found in the Terai at the foot of the Himalayas, from Bhutan to Nepal.

I have heard from sportsmen of its occurrence as far west as Rohilcund, but it is certainly rare there now, and indeed along the greater part of the Nepal Terai; ... Jelpigoree, a small military station near the Teesta River, was a favourite locality whence to hunt the Rhinoceros and it was from that station Captain Fortescue ... got his skulls, which were ... the first that Mr. Blyth had seen of this species, ...Today, its range has further shrunk to a few pockets in southern Nepal, northern West Bengal, and the Brahmaputra Valley.

The rhinos are also vulnerable to diseases spread by parasites such as leeches, ticks, and nematodes like Bivitellobilharzia nairi.

Their diet consists almost entirely of grasses (such as Arundo donax, Bambusa tulda, Cynodon dactylon, and Oryza sativa), but they also eat leaves, twigs and branches of shrubs and trees (such as Lagerstroemia indica), flowers, fruits (such as Ficus religiosa), and submerged and floating aquatic plants.

Indian rhinos also form short-term groupings, particularly at forest wallows during the monsoon season and in grasslands during March and April.

At least 10 distinct vocalisations have been identified: snorting, honking, bleating, roaring, squeak-panting, moo-grunting, shrieking, groaning, rumbling and humphing.

[1] Serious declines in quality of habitat have occurred in some areas, due to severe invasion by alien plants into grasslands affecting some populations, and demonstrated reductions in the extent of grasslands and wetland habitats due to woodland encroachment and silting up of beels (swampy wetlands).

[1] The Indian rhino species is inherently at risk because over 70% of its population occurs at a single site, Kaziranga National Park.

Any catastrophic event such as disease, civil disorder, poaching, or habitat loss would have a devastating impact on the Indian rhino's status.

[1] Sport hunting became common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was the main cause for the decline of Indian rhinoceros populations.

At present, poaching for the use of horn in traditional Chinese Medicine is one of the main threats that has led to decreases in several important populations.

When poor farmers from the mid-hills moved to the Chitwan Valley in search of arable land, the area was subsequently opened for settlement, and poaching of wildlife became rampant.

The Chitwan population has repeatedly been jeopardised by poaching; in 2002 alone, poachers killed 37 animals to saw off and sell their valuable horns.

To prevent the extinction of rhinos, the Chitwan National Park was gazetted in December 1970, with borders delineated the following year and established in 1973, initially encompassing an area of 544 km2 (210 sq mi).

[44] The Indian rhinoceros population living in Chitwan and Parsa National Parks was estimated at 608 mature individuals in 2015.

[43] Indian rhinos were once found as far west as the Peshawar Valley during the reign of Mughal Emperor Babur, but are now extinct in Pakistan.

No rhinoceros was successfully bred in Europe until 1956 when first European breeding took place when baby rhino Rudra was born in Zoo Basel on 14 September 1956.

[14] In June 2009, an Indian rhino was artificially inseminated using sperm collected four years previously and cryopreserved at the Cincinnati Zoo's CryoBioBank before being thawed and used.

[52] The Indian rhinoceros is one of the motifs on the Pashupati seal and many terracotta figurines that were excavated at archaeological sites of the Indus Valley civilisation.

[56] In 1515, Manuel I of Portugal obtained an Indian rhinoceros as a gift, which he passed on to Pope Leo X, but which died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516, on the way from Lisbon to Rome.

[56] In 1577–1588, Abada was a female Indian rhinoceros kept by the Portuguese kings Sebastian I and Henry I from 1577 to 1580 and by Philip II of Spain from about 1580 to 1588.

After tours through towns in the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, France, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Papal States, Bohemia and Denmark, she died in Lambeth, England.

In 1748, Johann Elias Ridinger made an etching of her in Augsburg, and Petrus Camper modelled her in clay in Leiden.