Buto is a male rhinoceros and a semi-recurring character from The Legend of Tarzan.
Background[]
Buto is the dominant bull of a crash of rhinos who typically live in a more open part of the forest, concentrating largely around the mouth of the river. Following Renard Dumont's construction of his trading post on that spot, they had to relocate.
Personality[]
As a general rule, rhinos in the Tarzan universe are territorial, stubborn and temperamental. Buto is no exception - he doesn't like anyone infringing on what he perceives to be his, whether it's approaching his horn-whetting tree or taking water from his drinking/wallowing hole. Perhaps more than any other rhino, his philosophy on dealing with others is, "Charge first, ask questions later." (On a related note, he's perfectly willing to use his herdmates to attack Tarzan from behind while he was indisposed; when Jane objects to such underhanded tactics, Terk quips that "Rhinos aren't exactly known for their sportsmanship.") He also refuses to lead his crash out of the gorillas' territory, even after Tarzan tries to reason with him; of course, to be fair, Tarzan approached the situation rather tactlessly, essentially ordering him and the other rhinos to leave.
Nonetheless, Buto does show some gratitude when Tarzan manages to construct a new wallowing/drinking place for his group.
Appearances[]
The Legend of Tarzan[]
"Tarzan and the Trading Post"[]
While Renard Dumont's crew are building the trading post, they use gunshots and dynamite to scare the rhinos away from the construction site at the river mouth, which was their original gathering place. Displaced from their usual haunt, they charged into the area inhabited by Tarzan's gorilla family, trampling the termite mounds in the process, and commandeering the water source for themselves (much to the gorillas' displeasure). Tarzan tries to persuade Buto to lead his group elsewhere, but between his confrontational tone, and rhinos' generally hard-headed nature, Buto refuses. Subsequently, Tarzan gets the idea to purchase dynamite from Dumont, which he uses to redirect a stream to create a new watering spot for the rhinos, after leading the crash there by goading them into charging. Upon seeing Tarzan's handiwork, Buto decides to settle his group there.
"Tarzan and the Outbreak"[]
By the time of this episode, Buto has apparently established a core territory elsewhere in the jungle. Tarzan and Robert Markham enter to harvest sap from a duramba tree to make an antidote to a virus that has afflicted Markham's workers, as well his daughter, Abby. However, Buto has marked the tree as his personal horn-sharpening post, and, true to form, he's in no mood to share it. Tarzan distracts the rhino while Markham taps the tree to get the sap; they both manage to get out just as Buto is about to trample/gore them.
This would be Buto's last significant appearance in the series.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Buto and his crash specifically represent the western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes), which once inhabited Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic.
- In 2006 – 5 years after "Tarzan and the Trading Post" aired – conservationists conducted a survey of former western black rhino habitat, but found no living specimens. In 2011, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) officially declared the subspecies extinct.
- In the original novels, Buto is the word for "rhino" in the Mangani language.
- Frank Welker voices Buto in his first episode, "The Trading Post", but for his second appearance, "The Outbreak", the producers opted to use audio recordings of real rhinos.
