This may not look like much, but it's rare, very rare. The World Wildlife Fund yesterday announced that a motion-triggered camera captured the first every photo of a wild Sumatran rhino in Borneo. There are believed to perhaps be only 13 Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni on the island. The main reasons for the drop in rhino numbers are illegal hunting and the fact that the remaining rhinos are so isolated they may rarely or never meet to breed. In addition, there is evidence that a high proportion of the female rhinos on Borneo have reproductive problems. Many of the remaining rhinos are old and possibly beyond reproductive age, so the death rate may be exceeding the birth rate.
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Portrait of the Sumatran Rhinoceros, Didermoceros sumatrensis.
Photo by Alain Compost (WWF-Canon).
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