Some years ago I found an animal horn in a piece of furniture.It se ems to be of matted hair is it Rhino?

Question

I'm sure that it's Rino or Buffalo . Is there a way to tell?

Answer 1

Like our fingernails and hair, rhino horn is made of keratin and has no healing properties. In some countries, rhinos are being dehorned, a process that removes the valuable horn but leaves the animal alive and well. This prevents poachers from killing rhinos for the money their horns would bring.
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-rhinoceros.html

See the horn in
http://www.skullsunlimited.com/black_rhinoceros_horns.html

Uses of rhino horn

Over the centuries man has used rhino horn in a wide variety of products.
Aphrodisiac

Most laymen in the West wrongly believe that rhino horn is primarily used as an aphrodisiac. The truth is that for centuries the two main uses of rhino horn have been ornamental and medicinal.

Ornamental Uses

Rhino horn has a beautiful translucent color when carved, and from as far back as A.D. 618 the Chinese have made ornamental bowl cups and other carvings. One of the rhino horn’s more useful purposes was for ornamental drinking cups to detect poisons. It is thought that this may have been because many early poisons were strong alkaloids that may have reacted strongly with the keratin and gelatin in the rhino horn, thereby indicating the presence of poison.


Daggers

In a number of the Gulf States, men traditionally wear daggers. In Yemen, in particular, the handles of the most expensive daggers, called “Djambiyas“, are still made out of a carved rhino horn. In contrast to the other materials used, such as water buffalo horn and plastic, rhino horn improves in luster with age. Thus it is the properties and quality of the horn that interest both the makers and the wearers of the daggers. Only recently has agate emerged as a high-quality substitute for rhino horn dagger handles, although agate handles are much more expensive.


Medicinal Uses

Rhino horn is a key ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Even today, traditional Chinese practitioners use rhino horn to treat life-threatening fevers. While current clinical evidence is inconclusive, the Chinese belief that rhino horn is a fever reducer may have some pharmaceutical basis. Interestingly, many consumers of rhino horn have no concept of where it comes from or that rhinos are endangered. They are simply taking the medicine prescribed to them by their respected medical practitioners.

In 1995 a conference was held and attended by TCM delegates from the Far East, as well as academics, government officials, and conservationists. The meeting indicated that there are strong cultural attachments to the merits of TCM. Some practitioners felt that the West maligns TCM and should not seek to legislate moral or health-care choices in the East

Answer 2

If it's Rhino it will appear to be made up of fibres. If it's horn it will be shiny and solid. Even if it's old, a Rhino horn is worth big money in China and other far eastern countries, but selling it to a dick less Chink couldl lead to more Rhinos being killed. The only way to tell is by eating it, if you grow ten times bigger, keep that sucker and appologise to all those nice China men for me.

Answer 3

Yes it's likely to be rhino. I can't think of any other animal which has a horn made out of modified (matted) hair. Buffalo horn is like cow's horn - laminar rather than anything else, and hollow for most of its length.

Answer 4

Yes. A rhino's horn consists of matted hair, not ivory.

Answer 5

You are sure it's one or the other. If its rhino horn, you're sitting on a fortune so its buffalo.

Answer 6

What makes you think it is Rhino? Did the furniture come from the African Continent?

Could it be Pronghorn antelope (indigenous to North America)?

H

Answer 7

yes, it may be a rhino

Answer 8

could be a dinosaur tusk take it to the museum the people will help you there.

Answer 9

why did you post this question in the anthropology field???... that is my answer, anthropology studies humans and cultures not animals' appearance!!!!!!!

Answer 10

TNA.