Abada was the name given to a female Indian rhinoceros

Indian Rhinoceros

The Indian Rhinoceros is also called Greater One-horned Rhinoceros and Asian One-horned Rhinoceros and belongs to the Rhinocerotidae family...

 kept by the Portuguese kings Sebastian I

Sebastian of Portugal

Sebastian "the Desired" was the 16th king of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of Prince John of Portugal and his wife, Joan of Spain...

 and Henry I from 1577 to 1580 and by Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain

Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

 from about 1580 to 1588. It was the first rhinoceros seen in Europe since the specimen that had been sent as a present from the King of Portugal, Manuel I

Manuel I of Portugal

Manuel I , the Fortunate , 14th king of Portugal and the Algarves was the son of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, , by his wife, Infanta Beatrice of Portugal...

, to Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...

 in 1515, which had died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516, but been immortalised as Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. The image was based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the...

.

Abada was probably meant as a general term for the rhinoceros, as it derives from the Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

 word (badak) for the animal and may have been in use in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 and Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 from around 1530, but since this was the only example of the species in Europe it served as a proper name as well.

In 1577, the rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....

 arrived at the port of Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

 intended for the menagerie of Sebastian I of Portugal

Sebastian of Portugal

Sebastian "the Desired" was the 16th king of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of Prince John of Portugal and his wife, Joan of Spain...

, probably as a gift from the viceroy

Viceroy

A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...

s of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. As a safety measure the horn was removed (this later grew back, but seems to have been removed on a regular basis).

Sebastian was succeeded by Henry I the following year. On the death of Henry in 1580, Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain

Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

 claimed the throne, uniting

Iberian Union

The Iberian union was a political unit that governed all of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Pyrenees from 1580–1640, through a dynastic union between the monarchies of Portugal and Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession...

 the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, and inherited the rhinoceros which he transferred to the menagerie of Casa de Campo

Casa de Campo

The Casa de Campo is the largest urban park situated west of central Madrid, . It was formerly a royal hunting estate. Its area is more than ....

, close to Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. On 16 October 1583 Philip transferred Abada once again, this time to the menagerie of El Escorial

El Escorial

The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a historical residence of the king of Spain, in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 45 kilometres northwest of the capital, Madrid, in Spain. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and...

. The transfer did not take place without incident: one of the keepers decided to refresh the animal by dousing it with buckets of water, but the sudden soaking startled her and, in panic, she knocked down all her attendants. At El Escorial, Abada was put on display to the public and presented to the Japanese ambassadors in November 1584. Juan González de Mendoza

Juan González de Mendoza

Juan González de Mendoza was the author of the first Western history of China to publish Chinese characters for Western delectation. Published by him in 1586, Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China is an account of observations several Spanish travelers...

 mentions it in his book, China, in which he comments that the public were impressed by its thick hide and horn, and that there was speculation as to it being the unicorn

Unicorn

The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

 of legend.

Philip used her to play a joke on the Hieronymite

Hieronymites

Hieronymites, or the Order of St. Jerome , is a common name for several congregations of hermits living according to the Rule of St. Augustine, with supplementary regulations taken from the writings of the 5th-century monk and scholar, St Jerome. The principal group with this name was founded in...

 friars at El Escorial. In the autumn of 1584, he arranged first for an Indian elephant

Indian Elephant

The Indian Elephant is one of three recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant, and native to mainland Asia. Since 1986, Elephas maximus has been listed as endangered by IUCN as the population has declined by at least 50% over the last three generations, estimated to be 60–75 years...

 (which he had also inherited from the Portuguese menagerie) to be driven up the steps and into the cells of the friars and the following week repeated the trick with the rhinoceros. While the elephant did not baulk at the strange events, Abada was stubborn and complaining, grunted bad-temperedly and refused to eat the food presented to her. At some point in her captivity she may have been blinded because the attendants had difficulty managing her and it was thought that this would make her less likely to attack them.
Abada appears to have died by 1588: Juan de Arphe y Villafañe

Juan de Arphe y Villafañe

Juan de Arfe y Villafañe was a Spanish engraver, goldsmith, artist, anatomist and author. He was of German descent. Born in Leon, Arphe y Villafañe was instructed by his father, Antonio, in goldsmithing and engraving, and also studied anatomy in Toledo and Salamanca...

 included a description and print of a rhinoceros in his manual of decoration published in 1585, based on observations of Abada, rather than Dürer's

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

 picture, as it lacks the dorsal horn added by Dürer; she was still alive in 1586 when her image was captured in an engraving by Philippe Galle

Philippe Galle

Philip Galle is best known as a publisher of old master prints, which he also produced as designer and engraver. He is especially known for his reproductive engravings of paintings.-Biography:...

, and was seen by Pedro Páez

Pedro Páez

Pedro Páez Jaramillo was a Spanish Jesuit missionary in Ethiopia. Páez is considered by many experts on Ethiopia to be the most effective Catholic missionary in Ethiopia...

 the following year, but there is no record of her after 1587. A street in Madrid, Calle de la Abada, close to the Puerta del Sol

Puerta del Sol

The Puerta del Sol is one of the best known and busiest places in Madrid. This is the centre of the radial network of Spanish roads. The square also contains the famous clock whose bells mark the traditional eating of the Twelve Grapes and the beginning of a new year...

still bears her name.