Rhinoceros sondaicus

The rhinoceros of Java ( Rhinoceros sondaicus ), still called Rhinoceros of the Probe, is a Rhinocéros unicorne which lives in Asia. Connected with the Indian Rhinoceros, it is rarest of all the rhinoceroses, like one of rarest among large the Mammifère S terrestrial.

Characteristics

The rhinoceros of Java is about as large as an Indian rhinoceros (more than 3 m body length apart from the tail, 170 cm height to the garrot, a weight of 1,8 tons). Between the male and the female, there exists at this species no difference in notable size; only the horn is longer in the male. It reaches a 25 cm length, whereas in the female it is only outlined, when it does not miss completely.

The exact lifespan is unknown, but would be probably from 30 to 40 years.

In spite of its name, the rhinoceros of Java did not live exclusively in the island of Java. Formerly, with the Rhinoceros of Sumatra, he lived the south-east of the continent of Asia since the Bangladesh until the Vietnam while passing by the Myanmar (Burma), the Thailand and the Laos, and one also found it in the islands of Java and Sumatra. According to the most recent knowledge, he also lived until the 16th century in the south of the empire of the China. Today, it was exterminated almost everywhere and survived only Java and Vietnam (see threat and protection).

Its vital space is with deepest of the tropical forest. It is necessary for him to have near water and holes of vase.

Lifestyle

The rhinoceroses of Java live solitary and are active the night. It is only at the time of the coupling that males and females find themselves for little time. After a sixteen months gestation, only one small comes in the world, his/her mother nurses it about during a year and there remain still two years with her.

The food of an rhinoceros of Java is composed mainly of sheets, fruits, branches and growths.

Threaten and protection

Indisputably the destruction of vital space plays a big role in the extermination of the rhinoceros of Java; the principal threat remains however the request for horns in China, because traditional medicine uses them after having crushed them, and the population still believes for its beneficial purposes.

One distinguishes three subspecies from the rhinoceros of Java from which two still exist.

R.S. inermis is a subspecies which lived in Bengladesh, in the Indian Assam and in Myanmar (Burma). It today completely disappeared.

R.S. sondaicus was when with it widespread in the Malayan peninsula like in Java and Sumatra. With survived only one population of approximately fifty animals in the national park of Ujung Kulon, a park of more than 1200 km ² to the western point of Java. The exact number of the animals is unknown. Researchers thought that their rarefaction was partly due to the competition with the population of Banteng, a bovine savage also threatened of extinction. The population seems stagnant since about fifteen year.

One believed a long time that the third subspecies, R.S. annamiticus , had disappeared, victim of the orange Agent and the mines. It is only in the years 1990 qu ' one discovered that it still existed in Vietnam. However this population seems to count less than ten animals, and its survival is estimated like improbable. It would seem besides that there are nothing any more but females still in life.

In 1965 the rhinoceros of Java was filmed for the first time. For their film les last Paradis Helmut Barth and Eugen Schuhmacher filmed a female rhinoceros with its small in the National park of Ujung Kulon .

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