Javan rhinoceros

Appearance

Like the Indian rhino, the Javan rhino has a single horn (the other extant species have two horns). Its horn is the smallest of all extant rhinos, usually less than 20 cm (7.9 in) with the longest recorded only 27 cm (11 in). Its horn is usually shorter than 25 cm (9.8 in).

It has a plate-like skin with protective folds and is one of the smallest rhinoceros species with a body length of 3.1–3.2 m (10.2–10.5 ft) and a 1.4–1.7 m (4.6–5.6 ft) long tail.

The length of a Javan rhino among them its head is 2 to 4 m (6.6 to 13.1 ft), and it can reach a height of 1.4–1.7 m (4.6–5.6 ft).

Range and habitat

Fossil remains of Javan rhinoceros have been found at the Neolithic site of Hemudu in Zhejiang, China, and the 4th century BCE Classic of Mountains and Seas appears to describe one living in the Yangtze River basin. Remains were also found in the Tam Hay Marklot cave site in northeastern Laos that date to the Pleistocene. Historically, Javan rhinoceroses were widespread from Assam and Bengal, eastward to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and southwards to the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo.

Until the mid-19th to about the early 20th century, the Javan rhinoceros had ranged beyond the islands of Java and Sumatra and onto the mainland of Southeast Asia and Indochina, northwest into East India, Bhutan, and the south of China. Conservation geneticists estimate a population of 100 rhinos would be needed to preserve the genetic diversity of this conservation-reliant species.

Habitat labels include forest.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Breeding

The Javan rhinoceros is a solitary animal with the exception of breeding pairs and mothers with calves. Nonetheless, rural, potentially rugged park boundaries mean that law enforcement cannot be equally present in all places at all times. In some areas, this lack of security still places the species at risk from poachers, disease exposure, and ultimately loss of genetic diversity, leading to genetic "bottlenecking" (i.e., inbreeding depression).

It is mostly solitary, except for courtship and rearing offspring, though groups may occasionally congregate near wallows and salt licks.

In crisis

The Javan rhinoceros, also called Javan rhino, Sunda rhinoceros and lesser one-horned rhinoceros is a critically endangered member of the genus Rhinoceros of the family Rhinocerotidae, and one of the five remaining extant rhinoceros species. Today, it is the rarest of all rhinoceroses, and among the rarest of all living animal species, with only one currently known wild population, and no individuals successfully kept in captivity. It is among the rarest large mammals in the world with a population around 74 within Ujung Kulon National Park, at the far western tip of Java, Indonesia.

The decline of the Javan rhinoceros is primarily attributed to poaching for the males' horns, that are highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine, fetching as much as US$30,000 per kg on the black market. Loss of habitat and massive human population growth especially postwar times have also contributed to its decline and hindered the species' recovery.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

Javan rhinoceros is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Javan rhinoceros, Wikidata item Q170311. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.