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Thursday, December 29, 2011

8 things you should know about the Borneo Sumatran rhino

The smallest of all

The Borneo Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrison) is a sub-species of the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis). It is the smallest of five living species, standing at about 145cm (4 feet 9 inches) and measuring 3m and 17cm (10 feet 5 inches) in length. It weighs between 500kg and 1,000kg. It can live up to about 30 years.

Unique to Borneo

The Sumatran rhinos are found in Indonesia's Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, southern Thailand and on Borneo island. But the Borneon sub-species lives only on Borneo island. It is one of three species with two horns and is the only one in Asia. Two other Asian rhino species, the Indian and the Javan, have one horn. The White and Black African rhinos have two horns. The Sumatran rhino and its Borneon cousin have a front horn of between 25cm and 79cm long and a smaller one which is shorter than 10cm.

They have reddish brown hair which gives them the nickname of "hairy rhino".

Facing extinction

Nobody knows how many of them are left in the rainforest that straddles the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak and Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island, the world's third largest. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates that there are between 30 and 70 of them. A 2005 survey found evidence of only 13 rhinos in Sabah.

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