12/18/2023 0 Comments Southern white rhino population 2020It went extinct around 12,000 years ago, most likely due to humans hunting it for its meat and thick fur pelt. It died out there about 4 million years ago, while the jumbo-sized, two-horned woolly rhinoceros flourished in Eurasia up until the last Ice Age. This compact variety was distributed throughout the world, including North America. Three families of rhinos evolved in the late Eocene: Hyracodontidae (running rhinos), Amynodontidae (aquatic rhinos), and ancestors of modern rhinos, Rhinocerotidae. The earliest known odd-toed, rhinoceros-like mammal appeared during the middle of the Eocene epoch (56 to 33.9 million years ago) and was the size of a large dog, with hooves, plant-eating dentition, and no horns. The rhinoceros is an odd-toed ungulate known as a perissodactyl, related to tapirs, horses, and zebras. The southern white rhinoceros was a conservation success story, but now it faces heavily armed, relentless poachers. Only the Sumatran and greater one-horned rhinos have canine teeth, which they use to slash and gouge at enemies. They are more closely related to the now-extinct woolly rhino than the other four rhino species. It is also the most petite, weighing in at about 1,320 to 2,000 pounds and measuring 3.3 to 5 feet tall at the shoulder. The hairiest rhino is the only two-horned rhino in Asia: the Sumatran. Sadly, the last Javan rhino in Vietnam was felled by a poacher’s bullet in 2010. The Javan rhino sports one horn, and the female’s horn is virtually non-existent, which could discourage poaching. According to the Asian Rhino Project, work has begun to expand the rhinos’ habitat by relocating illegal human settlers eradicating the arenga palm, an invasive plant that prevents the undergrowth (rhino food) from flourishing and replanting suitable rhino greens. The most threatened species is the solitary Javan rhino, numbering about 60 individuals in one national park in Java, Indonesia. Will its thick, armor-like folds of skin ward off extinction? While reintroduction projects have begun, poaching and habitat loss remain a looming threat. The greater one-horned rhino has risen from the critically endangered dust: in the 1900s, its numbers plummeted to about 200 animals, but today 3,330 animals live throughout India and Nepal. Of the three rhino species surviving in Asia-Sumatran, Javan, and greater one-horned-only one is showing conservation recovery while the other two are on the cusp of extinction. Sumatran rhinos are the smallest and hairiest rhino species. However, rampant poaching remains a chronic threat. Today, southern white rhinos are a conservation success story, as their numbers now exceed 20,000. A surviving population of 100 was rounded up and protected in a national park in South Africa. The southern white rhino, found primarily in South Africa, had been relentlessly hunted to near extinction in the early 1900s. The southern white rhino has fared much better than its northern brethren, which have become functionally extinct with only three individuals remaining. Both can produce 50 pounds of dung a day, and both species scrape the dung pile with the rear feet, flinging it and leaving two parallel foot skids through the pile as a form of communication. Black rhinos probably earned their name from their wallowing lifestyle and the dark mud on their skin. It is thought that the white rhino’s name was derived from the Afrikaans word “weit,” meaning wide, to describe its mouth. The hook-lipped black rhino is critically endangered. sondaicus, both with one horn, and the Sumatran rhino Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, with two horns. The Asian rhinos are the greater one-horned Rhinoceros unicornis and Javan rhino R. Africa has two species, both with two horns: the white rhino Ceratotherium simum and black rhino Diceros bicornis. Rhinos inhabit savannas and forests in tropical and subtropical regions. The outer layers are somewhat soft and can be worn down after years of use. Rhino horns tend to curve backward toward the animal’s head because the keratin in the front grows faster. Scientists say the calcium makes the horn stronger while the melanin protects it from the sun’s UV rays. With all the brouhaha about rhino horn, what exactly is it made of? Turns out, rhino horn is made of keratin like our hair and fingernails, with deposits of calcium and melanin in the core, so it is similar to horse hooves and turtle beaks (see our recent Rhino Horn Burn article). Meet our newest greater one-horned rhino calf trotting around the Safari Park.
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