The two rhinoceros mother and child were walking in front of the photographer’s lens, when suddenly a female lion was hiding behind a nearby bush. The lion suddenly rushed to attack the baby rhino. Luckily, the mother rhino promptly discovered the enemy attacking her baby.

The mother rhino did not hesitate to confront the ferocious lion and save her cub’s life. Faced with the mother rhino’s fierce protection, the female lion could only stand and watch the mother and her baby rhinoceros go away. The battle was recorded at Hluhluwe – Imfolozi park (South Africa), by photographer Tim Brown by chance.

Rhinos are the second largest land mammal on earth. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 500,000 rhinos living freely in the wild in Africa and Asia. However, today, the number of rhinos remaining in the wild is not much. The majority of rhinos now live in national parks and protected areas due to persistent poaching and continued habitat loss over the past several decades.

Most rhino species are solitary and they avoid each other. But some species, especially white rhinos, can live in groups. These groups usually consist of a female rhino and her young, however there are cases where adult female rhinos live together. Male rhinos, on the other hand, prefer to live alone, unless they are looking for a female rhino to mate with. They are very territorial and mark their territory with droppings. In fact, rhinos use the smell of their feces to communicate with each other, because each individual’s feces has its own smell.