Offspring of one of the rarest mammal species on earth: a small Sumatran rhinoceros has seen the light of day in an Indonesian national park. The male calf is the second rhino baby to be born this year in the Way Kambas National Park in the east of the island of Sumatra, the local environment ministry said. Since 2012, five rhinoceros have been born in the park as part of a protection program.
The mini rhino was born on Saturday on the 460th day of his mother’s pregnancy – ten days earlier than the expected date. It doesn’t have a name yet. His parents are seven-year-old Delilah, who was born in the park, and the bull Harapan, who was born in 2007 at the Cincinnati Zoo in the USA. In 2015 he found a new home in Way Kambas. According to the ministry, no Sumatran rhino lives outside Indonesia since then.
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It is the smallest of the five rhinoceros species that exist worldwide. Unlike other species, the animals’ bodies are hairy. They have two horns and have a large repertoire of vocalizations, such as squeaking, humming and snorting.
Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) were once widespread in Southeast Asia. Hunting of the animals and the destruction of their habitats have caused the population to shrink to an estimated 80 individuals today. “This rhino is so rare that few people have ever seen one in the wild,” the Sumatran Rhino Alliance writes on its website. The alliance includes, among others, the Indonesian government, the WWF, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Rhino Foundation.
