Day 5 cont
Professor Abraham
I pull her away to the cafeteria.
Gosh! She has made me so angry today. I have given her one instruction, just one, to stay away from that guy, but it seems like she doesn't have the ear to listen.
I guess I'd have to do it the hard way now. I'll make sure that she is by my side all the time, and I don't care how many times she tries to complain.
She brought this on herself, and now she has to live with the consequences.
My mind wandered back to the kiss from earlier.
I had wanted to do something in order to punish her, but at that moment, all ideas were out of my head.
I was so close to comfort with her, and all my eyes could see were her lips, and my brain did as it pleased.
I have kept reminding myself time and time again that I should be professional with her, but whenever I get closer to her, I turn into something else.
I'm starting to think that her presence is really going to be a problem for me one of these days.
"Good morning," we all kept on greeting as we approached the crowd.
The place is now filled with people, as all were rushing to have their breakfast before the roll call.
All were staring at me as I held onto her ever so protectively.
Some even had jealousy laced in their eyes.
I sat her down on the seat where the teachers were having their breakfast.
"Good morning," she greets them.
"Morning, my dear, how are you feeling now? Are you better? Don't you need some rest?" Some of the teachers ask.
"The professor is here to take care of her," one of the teachers adds.
I could see her face reddening, and I felt so satisfied. Now she'll know to whom she actually belongs.
**********
After the roll call, we headed out into the jungle to find the next animal to give them a lecture, and soon enough, we were lucky to have found a rhino up ahead.
Without wasting any time, I went on with the explanation.
"Today, I'll be explaining to you about this huge wonder over there," I point out to the rhinos.
Some of the students were all gasping as they said them.
"A rhinoceros is an ancient Greek name meaning 'nose-horned'; derived from rhīnós meaning 'nose', and 'horn', and is commonly abbreviated to rhino." I begin
"It is a member of any of the five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae."
"Two of the extant species are native to Africa and three to South and Southeast Asia, and we'll only be discussing the ones here in Africa today since we are present in Africa," I continue.
"Rhinoceroses are some of the largest remaining megafauna; they all weigh at least one ton in adulthood; they have an herbivorous diet; they have small brains weighing from about 400 to 600 g for mammals of their size; they have one or two horns; and they have a thick 1.5 to 5 cm protective skin formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure."
"They generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter when necessary."
"Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths; they rely instead on their lips to pluck food."
"Excuse me, sir," one of the students calls out.
"What, any problem?" I ask.
"What are perissodactyls?" He asks.
"They are a group of herbivorous mammals characterized by the possession of either one or three hoofed toes on each hindfoot. They include the horses, asses, and zebras, the tapirs, and the rhinoceroses," I answer.
"Understood?" I ask.
He nodded, and they all went ahead to write it down.
Back in my days, we seldom took notes but tried to understand what was being taught.
"Where were we? Yes, rhinoceros are killed by poachers for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market for high prices, leading to most living rhinoceros species being considered endangered," I continue.
"The contemporary market for rhino horn is overwhelmingly driven by China and Vietnam, where it is bought by wealthy consumers to use in traditional Chinese medicine, among other uses."
"Rhino horns are made of keratin, the same material as hair and fingernails are made of, and there is no good evidence of any health benefits to them," I continue.
"A market also exists for rhino horn dagger handles in Yemen, which was the major source of demand for rhino horn in the 1970s and 1980s," I add.
"The family Rhinocerotidae consists of only four extant genera today, which are Ceratotherium, the white rhinoceros, Diceros, the black rhinoceros, Dicerorhinus, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and Rhinoceros, which are the Indian and Javan rhinoceros," I say.
"The living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the tribe Dicerotini, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago, and the species diverged during the early Pliocene, which is about 5 million years ago."
"The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths, as white rhinos have broad, flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long, pointed lips for eating foliage," I say.
"Now who can tell me what type of rhino is this one over there?" I ask.
One student lifted up her hand.
"Yes," I say.
"It's a black rhinoceros, sir," she answers.
"Correct," I say.
I was going to continue with my lectures when I noticed that Nina was not next to me again.
I look to my side and see her tiptoeing away.
I have kept her close to me all this while and haven't let her leave my sight.
"Nina Grifforth," I call out her name in the microphone.
She froze from her escape.
"Could you please come back and stand here?" I say, pointing next to me.
She pouts, then comes back and stands next to me.
I could hear some of the students laughing at her and making side comments.
Well, that's what he gets for trying to defile my instructions.
"Now where were we? Yes, while the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes, which are diploid numbers (2N, per cell, all other rhinoceros species have 82 chromosomes, and this chromosomal polymorphism might lead to varying chromosome counts; for instance, in a study, there were three northern white rhinoceroses with 81 chromosomes," I continue.
"Now let's talk about the white rhino," I say.
"There are two subspecies of white rhinoceros: the southern white rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum simum, and the northern white rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum cottoni," I continue.
"As of 2013, the southern subspecies has a wild population of 20,405, making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world, while the northern subspecies is critically endangered, with all that is known to remain being two captive females," I add.
"There is no conclusive explanation of the name 'white rhinoceros'. A popular idea is that 'white' is a distortion of either the Afrikaans word wyd or the Dutch word wijd or its other possible spellings whyde, weit, etc., meaning "wide" and referring to the rhino's square lips, but it is not supported by linguistic studies."
"The white rhino has an immense body and large head, a short neck, and a broad chest; the females weigh about 1,600 kg and the males 2,400 kg."
"The head-and-body length is about 3.5–4.6 m and the shoulder height is 1.8–2 m," I add.
Just by their imagination, they know that it's a very huge animal.
"On its snout, it has two horns; the front horn is larger than the other horn, averages 90 cm in length, and can reach 150 cm," I continue.
"The white rhinoceros also has a prominent muscular hump that supports its relatively large head."
"The color of this animal can range from yellowish brown to slate gray, and most of its body hair is found on the ear fringes and tail bristles, with the rest distributed rather sparsely over the rest of the body."
"White rhinos have the distinctive flat, broad mouth that is used for grazing." I stop to take a deep breath and to check on my prisoner.
"Now to the black rhinoceros," I say.
"The name 'black rhinoceros' (Diceros bicornis) was chosen to distinguish this species from the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum), and this can be confusing as the two species are not truly distinguishable by color."
"There are four subspecies of black rhino, the South-central Diceros bicornis minor, which is the most numerous and once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa," I say.
"The South-western Diceros bicornis occidentalis, which is better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana, and western South Africa; East African Diceros bicornis michaeli, primarily in Tanzania; and West African Diceros bicornis longipes, which was declared extinct in November 2011" I continue.
"The native Tswanan name keitloa describes a South African variation of the black rhino in which the posterior horn is equal to or longer than the anterior horn," I add.
"An adult black rhinoceros stands 1.50–1.75 m high at the shoulder and is 3.5–3.9 m in length, and an adult weighs from 850 to 1,600 kg, exceptionally to 1,800 kg, with the females being smaller than the males."
"Two horns on the skull are made of keratin, with the larger front horn typically 50 cm long, exceptionally up to 140 cm, and sometimes a third smaller horn may develop."
"The black rhino is much smaller than the white rhino and has a pointed mouth, which it uses to grasp leaves and twigs when feeding."
"During the latter half of the 20th century, their numbers were severely reduced from an estimated 70,000 in the late 1960s to a record low of 2,410 in 1995."
"Since then, numbers have been steadily increasing at a continental level, with numbers doubling to 4,880 by the end of 2010, and as of 2008, the numbers are still 90% lower than three generations ago," I say.
I can't help but feel sad for the poor animals.
'Rhinocerotoids diverged from other perissodactyls by the early Eocene. Fossils of Hyrachyus eximus found in North America date to this period. This small, hornless ancestor resembled a tapir or small horse more than a rhino," I continue.
"The three families, sometimes grouped together as the superfamily Rhinocerotoidea, evolved in the late Eocene, namely the Hyracodontidae, Amynodontidae, and Rhinocerotidae'.
"The Hyracodontidae, also known as "running rhinos," showed adaptations for speed and would have looked more like horses than modern rhinos. The smallest hyracodontids were dog-sized. Hyracodontids spread across Eurasia from the mid-Eocene to the early  Miocene."I explain
"The Amynodontidae, also known as "aquatic  rhinos, dispersed across North America and Eurasia from the late Eocene to the early Oligocene. The amynodontids were hippopotamus-like in their ecology and appearance, inhabiting rivers and lakes and sharing many of the same adaptations to aquatic life as hippos."
"The family of all modern rhinoceros, the Rhinocerotidae, first appeared in the Late Eocene in Eurasia, and the earliest members of the Rhinocerotidae were small and numerous; at least 26 genera lived in Eurasia and North America until a wave of extinctions in the middle Oligocene wiped out most of the smaller species. Several independent lineages survived," I say.
"Menoceras, a pig-sized rhinoceros, had two horns side by side. The North American Teleoceras had short legs and a barrel chest and lived until about five million years ago. The last rhinos in the Americas became extinct during the Pliocene."
"Modern rhinos are thought to have begun dispersal from Asia during the Miocene, and alongside the extant species, four additional species of rhinoceros survived into the Last Glacial Period: the woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis, Elasmotherium sibiricum, and two species of Stephanorhinus, Merck's rhinoceros Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis and the narrow-nosed rhinoceros Stephanorhinus hemitoechus."
"The woolly rhinoceros appeared in China around 1 million years ago and first arrived in Europe around 600,000 years ago, and they reappeared 200,000 years ago, alongside the woolly mammoth, and became numerous while Elasmotherium was two meters tall, five meters long, and weighed around five tons. With a single enormous horn, hypsodont teeth, and long legs for running, the latest known well-dated bones of Elasmotherium found in the south of Western Siberia (the area that is today Kazakhstan) date as recently as 39,000 years ago," I say.
'The origin of the two living African rhinos can be traced to the late Miocene species Ceratotherium neumayri," I continue.
'The lineages containing the living species diverged by the early Pliocene, when Diceros praecox, the likely ancestor of the black rhinoceros, appeared in the fossil record."
"The black and white rhinoceros remain so closely related that they can still mate and successfully produce offspring," I add.
"Adult rhinoceros have no real predators in the wild other than humans, and young rhinos sometimes fall prey to big cats, crocodiles, African wild dogs, and hyenas," I continue.
"Although rhinos are large and aggressive and have a reputation for being resilient, they are very easily poached; they visit water holes daily and can be easily killed while they drink."
"As of December 2009, poaching increased globally while efforts to protect the rhino are considered increasingly ineffective; the most serious estimate is that only 3% of poachers are successfully countered in Zimbabwe, while Nepal has largely avoided the crisis."
"Poachers have become more sophisticated, and South African officials have called for urgent action against poaching after poachers killed the last female rhino in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve near Johannesburg."
"In some cases, rhinos are drugged and their horns removed, while in other instances, more than the horn is taken."