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Indian rhino - Nepal
photo: WWF-Canon / Jeff FOOTT |
Asian rhinos have wallowed in swamps and wandered in forests for tens of millions of years. Historically, these rhinos have held a significant place in the lives of people, who have hunted the rhinos for their meat, horns and skin; celebrated them in cave paintings, mosaics and cultural artifacts; and used their parts in ceremonies, as talismans and in traditional medicines. Tamed rhinos were even deployed in battle by Indian princes. There are three species of Asian Rhino, the greater one horned or Indian Rhino, the Javan Rhino and the Sumatran Rhino.
Greater one-horned (Indian) rhino
The greater one-horned rhino has a single fibrous brown horn and its hide is grayish-brown in color with skin folds that give the rhino an armored appearance. It is the largest of the three Asian rhino species, weighing from 3,300 to 4,400 pounds. Greater one-horned rhinos are generally solitary, although temporary associations of several individuals may form at wallows or on grazing grounds. Greater one-horned rhinos prefer alluvial grassland habitat and they eat grass, fruit, shrubs, leaves and branches. The greater one-horned is now the most numerous of the three Asian species after staging an impressive comeback from near extinction. Early in the 20th century, only about a dozen greater one-horns were left in Kaziranga National Park in India. Kaziranga has been protected since 1908, which has helped to foster a population increase. In the mean time, a small number of rhinos have been translocated to the Dudhwa Reserve in Uttar Pradesh (central India). In Nepal the greater one-horned numbers dropped to about 100 right after World War II. Since a national park in the Chitwan Valley was established in 1973, the number of greater one-horns in Nepal has risen to over 600, thanks to an intensive antipoaching effort.
Javan rhino
The Javan rhino is a close relative of the greater one-horned rhino and bears the dubious distinction of being the world's most endangered large mammal species. The Javan rhino, or lesser one-horned rhino, favors dense lowland rainforest with plenty of mud wallows. It is a dusky gray color, has a single horn and weighs between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds. It is mostly a browser but will graze on grass, leaves and fallen fruit. Javan Rhinos are divided into two sub-species: one lives in Ujung Kulon, Indonesia and the other is found in Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam. Although both subspecies are called Javan or lesser one-horned rhino, the sub-species of Cat Tien National Park is called by some the Vietnamese Rhinoceros. (Only the Vietnamese subspecies was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in the late 1980s.)
Sumatran rhino
With its shaggy coat of hair, the Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the world's five rhino species, weighing 1,300-1,700 pounds. It is also the only Asian species that has two horns. The Sumatran rhino can live in different habitat types, including sea-level wetlands and montane forests. It feeds on fallen fruit, twigs and bark.
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