Invention of Fake Rhino Horn to Curb Poaching of Endangered Animals

NEWS |

Pembroke Zoology Associate, Professor Fritz Vollrath, has recently co-led a project which has invented a method of producing fake rhino horns. It is hoped that this credible imitation will be able to enter the rhino horn market and therefore protect endangered rhino species from poachers.

The rhino’s horn is not a horn in the traditional sense, though it does share some material properties. It is actually a tuft of hair that grows, tightly packed and glued together by exudates from sebaceous glands, on the nose of the animal.

The fake rhino horn has been constructed by bundling together tail hairs from horses, and then gluing these together with a bespoke matrix of regenerated silk, to resemble the real horn as closely as possible. Crucially, the structure and composition of this horn are created so that the microstructure, even when cut and polished, remains remarkably similar to that of the real horn.

Professor Vollrath commented: “It appears from our investigation that it is rather easy as well as cheap to make a bio-inspired hornlike material that mimics the rhino’s extravagantly expensive tuft of nose hair. We leave it to others to develop this technology further with the aim to confuse the trade, depress prices and thus support rhino conservation.”