St. Louis Gets a Baby Black Rhino

A black rhinoceros calf was born at the Saint Louis Zoo on January 14, 2011. Weighing in at around 120 pounds, the little male is reported doing well. Same goes for the mother, named Kati Rain. There's no name yet for Junior.

The black rhino is on the endangered species list. It suffered the sharpest decline of all rhino species as poaching nearly wiped out the population in the last century. Parts of the black rhino are prized on the black market in some Asian countries for medicinal uses.

In recent years, the black rhino population in Africa has made a comeback, climbing from approximately 2,300 in 1993 to 4,240, according to the International Rhino Foundation. There used to be about 65,000 black rhinos in Africa.

This was the first black rhino calf born at the Saint Louis Zoo in 20 years.

They are called black rhinos but that's a misnomer as the animals are not actually colored black. The name likely came about as a way to mark them as separate from the white rhino (also a misnomer). The IRF suggests that the name may also be linked to the dark color of the local soil that the rhino likes to roll around in.