There's a rhinoceros in my office
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note of any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
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This rhinoceros is a disembodied head that is mounted on the wall. To be more precise it is the right half of the head and neck and it is carved out of wood. It is a realistic enough carving that I can ID it as an Africa Black Rhinoceros although not to subspecies.
My mother had this on the wall as long as I can remember, in every place she lived. When she died in 2008 I claimed it and brought it to my brand new office.
My memory is hazy about the origins of the rhinoceros. I believe it may have been a gift from her father who had travelled at times during his career as a civil engineer. The back of the rhinoceros has a word branded in the back which is small and illegible - it might say 'Vimho'. There is also a red stamp that is completely unreadable. It appears to be carved from a dark tropical hardwood.
Anyway this is the Daily Bucket, not Antiques Roadshow. My thoughts were more about dispersal. This object has lived in at least 8 different locations around North America in my lifetime. Who knows where it will go next? And before that where did it come from?
And before it was a rhinoceros head it was part of a tree. Where was that tree growing? What birds and lizards and snakes and monkeys and big scary looking bugs and small hard to see bugs lived on its branches and fed on its leaves and fruit.
As much as I love the rhinoceros it makes it a bit more exciting to imagine elephants walking by the wood from which it came, in a forest in Africa 70 years ago (of course all of the above may be false).
I realize this isn't much of a bucket but nothing had been put out yet today and the rhinoceros was the only wildlife I could see.