Critically Endangered
Sumatran rhinoceros
Dicerorhinus sumatrensis
Sumatran rhinoceros is a mammal in the family Rhinocerotidae (order Perissodactyla) — Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The larger is the nasal horn, typically only 15–25 cm (5.9–9.8 in), though the longest recorded specimen was much longer at 81 cm (32 in). The posterior horn is much smaller, usually less than 10 cm (3.9 in) long, and often little more than a knob. The larger nasal horn is also known as the anterior horn. The smaller posterior horn is known as the frontal horn.
It is the smallest rhinoceros, although it is still a large mammal. It stands 112–145 cm (44–57 in) high at the shoulder, with a head-and-body length of 2.36–3.18 m (7 ft 9 in – 10 ft 5 in) and a tail of 35–70 cm (14–28 in).
A mature Sumatran rhino stands about 112–145 cm (3.67–4.76 ft) high at the shoulder, has a body length of around 236–318 cm (7.74–10.43 ft), and weighs 500–800 kg (1,100–1,760 lb), though the largest individuals in zoos have been known to weigh as much as 2,000 kg (4,410 lb).
Range and habitat
Remains of Sumatran rhinoceros have been found in Chinese Neolithic sites of Zhejiang, Henan, Fujian, and the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. In Southeast Asia, the Sumatran rhinoceros lives in both lowland and highland secondary rainforest, swamps, and cloud forests. It inhabits hilly areas close to water, particularly steep upper valleys with copious undergrowth.
Habitat labels include shrubland and forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Sumatran rhinos are solitary creatures except for pairing before mating and during offspring rearing. Sex relationships begin with a courtship period characterized by increased vocalization, tail raising, urination, and increased physical contact, with both bull and cow using their snouts to bump the other in the head and genitals.
The pattern of courtship is most similar to that of the black rhinoceros. Young Sumatran rhino bulls are often too aggressive with cows, sometimes injuring and even killing them during the courtship. In the wild, the cow could run away from an overly aggressive bull, but in their smaller captive enclosures, they cannot. This inability to escape aggressive bulls may partly contribute to the low success rate of captive-breeding programs.
In crisis
It is now critically endangered, with only five substantial populations in the wild: four in Sumatra and one in Borneo, with an estimated total population of fewer than 80 mature individuals. The species was extirpated in Malaysia in 2019, with the last known bull and cow dying in May and November, respectively, and one of the Sumatran populations may already be extinct. In 2015, researchers announced that the Bornean rhinoceros had become extinct in the northern part of Borneo in Sabah, Malaysia.
A tiny population was discovered in East Kalimantan in early 2016.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Sumatran 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 Sumatran rhinoceros, Wikidata item Q29220. 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.
