![]() ![]() The black rhino once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by commercial demand for its horn. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle. Many animals have been killed for the hard, hairlike growth, which is revered for medicinal uses in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has also been their downfall. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet long. Rhino Horn and Threats to Survivalīlack rhinos boast two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape. Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They often find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block. Under the hot African sun, they take cover by lying in the shade. Adults reach a height of 1.6 metres and a weight of 900-1,350 kilograms, and usually have a smaller head and neck hump than their white counterparts. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.īlack rhinos feed at night and during the gloaming hours of dawn and dusk. Of the two African rhinoceros species, the black rhino is the smaller kind. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. BehaviorĮxcept for females and their offspring, black rhinos are solitary. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. ![]() The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The Red List now contains almost 62,000 species of plants and animals, whose status is constantly monitored by conservationists.Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. ![]() The Przewalski's Horse, a type of wild horse from Central Asia, has come back from extinction after a successful breeding program in captivity. The Southern White Rhino numbered just 100 animals at the end of the 19th century, but has since flourished and now has a population of over 20,000. "A lack of political support and willpower for conservation efforts in many rhino habitats, international organized crime groups targeting rhinos and increasing illegal demand for rhino horns and commercial poaching are the main threats faced by rhinos," the group said in a statement accompanying the latest update of its so-called Red List of endangered species.Ībout a quarter of all mammals are at risk of extinction, IUCN said, adding that some species have been brought back from the brink with successful conservation programs. The International Union for Conservation of Nature said a recent reassessments of the Western Black Rhino had led it to declare the species extinct, adding that the Northern White Rhino of central Africa is now "possibly extinct" in the wild and the Javan Rhino is "probably extinct" in Vietnam, after poachers killed the last animal there in 2010.Ī small but declining population of the Javan Rhino survives on the Indonesian island of Java, it added. GENEVA - The Western Black Rhino of Africa has been declared officially extinct, and two other subspecies of rhinoceros are close to meeting the same fate, a leading conservation group said Thursday. ![]()
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