Life in Newburgh on Ythan

By Talpa

Heading for extinction

This is the skull of a Sumatran rhinoceros Dicerorhinus sumatrensis.

The Sumatran rhino once roamed from the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas in Bhutan and eastern India, through Myanmar, Thailand, possibly to Vietnam and China, and south through the Malay Peninsula. Two different subspecies, the western Sumatran and eastern Sumatran, cling for survival on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, a third subspecies is probably now extinct. Sumatran rhinos now compete with the Javan rhino for the unenviable title of most threatened rhino species in the world, with possibly as few as 100 animals left.

You can see the living animal in this short video taken recently in the forests of Borneo.

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