What is a rhino's horn actually made of?
Rhino's Nail Secret
What is a rhino's horn actually made of?
Picture a rhino: two tons of grumpy armor, with a great curved horn rising off its nose like a warning sign. Surely that horn is bone, right? A skull-spike, a built-in lance? Plot twist: it isn't bone at all. It's made of the same stuff growing out of the top of your head right now.
The secret word is keratin. Keratin is a tough, stringy protein, and it's the body's favorite building material for the parts that need to be hard but not alive-and-bleeding. Your hair is keratin. Your fingernails are keratin. So is a horse's hoof, a bird's beak, and a turtle's shell scales. A rhino horn is just keratin showing off.
