Creating artificial Rhino Horns from Horse Hair

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 16233 - 6
• Main Authors: Mi, Ruixin, Shao, Z. Z., Vollrath, F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.11.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/1647/767; 631/57/2268; Animals; Biopolymers; Collagen; Fibroins - chemistry; Hair - chemistry; Horns; Horns - chemistry; Horns - cytology; Horns - ultrastructure; Horses; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mechanical Phenomena; Mechanical properties; Mimicry; multidisciplinary; Perissodactyla; Poaching; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Silk; Spectrum Analysis; Thermodynamics; Wildlife conservation
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-52527-5

Demand for rhino horn is driving poaching with devastating effect for the few individuals left of the few species surviving from this once numerous, widespread and cosmopolitan clade of pachyderms. We bundled together tail hairs of the rhino’s ubiquitous near relative, the horse, to be glued together with a bespoke matrix of regenerated silk mimicking the collagenous component of the real horn. This approach allowed us to fabricate composite structures that were confusingly similar to real rhino horn in look, feel and properties. Spectral and thermal FT-IR, DSC and TGA analysis demonstrated the similar chemical composition and thermo-mechanical properties between the natural and the faux horns.