Rhinoceros of Sumatra

The rhinoceros of Sumatra ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ) is only Dicerorhinus , one of the four kinds of Rhinocéros.

The rhinoceros of Sumatra ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ) is the smallest alive rhinoceros. In spite of his name one finds it not only with Sumatra, but in the vast ones extended from Asian South-east ; it was however exterminated in most of its old habitat.

Characteristics

Many characteristics distinguish the rhinoceros from Sumatra of the other rhinoceroses. With a length of almost 3 m apart from the tail and a height with the garrot of 130 cm, it is relatively small. The presence of hairs on its body is remarkable. The young people have a dense peeling and, in the young adults, the hairs brown red are seen still distinctly. In the older animals, the hairs are black and rarer.

With the difference in the two other kinds of rhinoceros of Asia (the rhinoceros of Java, and the rhinoceros of India), the rhinoceros of Sumatra has two horns. However, the horn before is only 25 cm length, and the second is a hardly visible outgrowth and is not pointed.

Habitat and subspecies

The primitive area of its habitat left the Bangladesh and of the Eastern border zones of the India, included/understood Myanmar, the Thailand and the Kampuchea and went until the Vietnam with also the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The rhinoceros of Sumatra lives with the variation in the tropical forest and the forest of moderate mountain.

Today, the animal does not live any more but in Sumatra and Borneo.

One distinguishes three subspecies among the rhinoceroses from Sumatra, of which here original habitats:

Dicerorhinus sumatrensis sumatrensis in the continental South-East Asia and in Sumatra
Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrisoni in Borneo
Dicerorhinus sumatrensis lasiotus in Bangladesh, in India and in Myanmar (Burma)

Lifestyle

The rhinoceroses of Sumatra are active of night. They generally remain close to the water points. A pond that they deepen still sometimes and release from vegetation is used them around as place of rest. Each night, the rhinoceros eats approximately 50 kg of plants. It chooses besides little and absorbs indifferently fruits, sheets, branches and barks.

Living as recluses on a delimited territory, the male and the female find themselves only at the time of the coupling. The remainder of time the rhinoceroses of Sumatra keep away from/to each other. So males meet at the time of the rut, it can result from it from the battles. The fields are marked with droppings and urine. They can be recut, but there exists always a reserved zone where the congeneric ones are not tolerated.

Threaten and protection

The rhinoceros of Sumatra is regarded by IUCN as very threatened.

the subspecies Lasiotus entirely disappeared, seems it, although there is at the time of the rumors on a small population which would survive in Myanmar (Burma).

the Rhinoceros of Borneo (the subspecies harrisoni ) account less than 50 individuals in the Federal state of Sabah in Malaysia. A study carried out on the ground in 2005 identified only 13 animals with certainty.

the subspecies Rhinocéros of common Sumatra is spread still a little, but counts only 250 individuals, with about half with Sumatra, in particular in the national parks of Way Kambas and Bukit Barisan Selatan, and the other in the State of Melaka in Malaysia. It disappeared in Vietnam, in Kampuchea, with the Laos and probably also in Thailand.

Phylogenetic

Among the alive rhinoceroses, the rhinoceros of Sumatra does not have any close relation. Before one could practice examinations of DNA, one looked at it either as a particularly primitive rhinoceros or like a relative of the African species , especially because of his two horns. Since, examinations showed that the rhinoceroses of Asia are related between them and separated there is approximately 26 million years of the rhinoceroses of Africa. The woolly Rhinocéros of the diluvial period belonged to the same family as the rhinoceros of Sumatra.

Captivity

The Rhinoceros of Sumatra is an exceptional host of the zoological gardens; however, the first case of reproduction of rhinoceros in captivity related to this species (in 1889 with the Zoo of Calcutta).

Thereafter, very few parks accommodated specimens of them, and no reproduction was recorded in addition to one century.

In the years 1980, a breeding campaign in captivity was tried in several American and English zoos, but proved to be a semi-failure (several animals died prematurely, and the reproduction was recorded only with the Zoo of Cincinnati).

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