Rhinoceros how many left

Members Area. Members Login. Rhino populations The most recent population numbers for all five rhino species. Related articles. Rhinos increase in Kenya 2 Sep Two new Javan rhinos increase the population to 75 18 Aug Tracking black rhinos in Namibia 16 Jun Hear more from Save the Rhino Sign up to our monthly newsletter to keep up to date with our latest stories and events.

I would like to receive email updates from Save the Rhino. So Dr Hildebrandt created an instrument to collect the eggs.

It was a tube, which enters through the anus, and has a long delicate needle at its end with which to pierce an ovary follicle, where an egg is stored. The needle is connected to a suction device which sucks the egg down the long tube. That would result in internal bleeding and ultimately death so he uses a 4D ultrasound scanner, enabling him to see everything during the procedure. If done correctly the effect on the rhino is minimal, Dr Hildebrandt says. But the operation can be no longer than two hours as that is how long a rhino can be safely anaesthetised.

Last year, he managed to extract 19 eggs in total from both Najin and Fatu. For this pioneering work, they needed an in vitro fertilisation IVF expert.

Cesare Galli, based in the Avantea private lab in Italy, fitted the bill. So as soon as the eggs were collected, they had to be rushed from Kenya to Italy. Prof Galli had struggled to make embryos from other rhino species in the past as sperm from rhinos tends to be of a low quality as it is mixed with urine.

Dr Galli took years to perfect the method with Sumatran rhinos and southern white rhinos, making a breakthrough by electrocuting an egg to get it and the sperm to form an embryo.

With the rarer northern white rhino sperm and eggs he was confident he knew what would work. He made two embryos with the first delivery of eggs in August and one more embryo with the second delivery four months later. To grow, these embryos need a womb - but neither Fatu's nor Najin's are suitable. Nineteen-year-old Fatu has never had a calf despite mating.

When vets gave her an ultrasound they found she had no lining on her uterus, meaning she cannot carry a pregnancy to full term, said Stephen Ngulu, a vet at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Fatu's year-old mother, Najin, has weak hind legs - as issue because when rhinos are pregnant the hormone progesterone changes the dynamics of their legs. Instead they plan to use southern white rhino surrogates. But Dr Galli says there is still so much they don't know about the reproductive system of rhinos.

Attempts in the past to put embryos in southern white rhinos in zoos have failed. One of the things the scientists are struggling to work out is the timing to implant the embryo. They need to know exactly when the body is best ready for it to attach to the uterus lining.

In women, the menstrual cycle determines when to implant an embryo. But not all animals have menstrual cycles - some animals, including cats, release their eggs when they mate. If this is also true for rhinos then it is possible to use sexual intercourse as an indicator, Dr Galli explains. In other words, it may be possible that the scientists increase the chances of the surrogate carrying the pregnancy through to birth if they implant the embryo after she has had sex.

This hunch has led them to set the scene for the next stage in their elaborate plan. Four wild female southern white rhinos have been enclosed with their offspring in their natural habitat not far from the last two remaining northern white rhinos. The next step is to put a sterilised southern white rhino in with the females - and would-be surrogates. That's the dream," says Dr Ngulu. Unlike Najin and Fatu, they are wild so they can be hard to track down in the sprawling enclosure.

When we found them, on the second day of searching, I couldn't help but think that these rhinos do not know it yet, but one of them may save a species from extinction.

Physical description White rhinos are the second largest land mammal after the elephant. Adult males can reach 1. Females are considerably smaller but can still weigh in at an impressive 1. White rhinos are also known as the square-lipped rhinoceros due to their square not pointed upper lip. Compared to black rhinos , white rhinos have a longer skull, a less sharply defined forehead and a more pronounced shoulder hump. They have almost no hair and two horns. The front horn averages 60 cm, but occasionally reaches cm in length.

Life cycle White rhinos have complex social structures. Groups of sometimes 14 rhinos may form, notably females with calves. Adult males defend territories of roughly km 2 , which they mark with vigorously scraped dung piles. The home range for adult females can be more than seven times larger, depending on habitat quality and population density. Males competing for a female may engage in serious conflict, using their horns and massive size to inflict wounds. Females reach sexual maturity at years of age but do not reproduce until they reach 6 -7 years.

Males tend not to mate until they are years old. They can live up to 40 years. Mating occurs throughout the year, although peaks have been observed from October to December in South Africa and from February to June in East Africa. The gestation period is approximately 16 months with a period of years between calves. White rhinos are the only grazer among the five rhino species, feeding almost exclusively on short grasses.

They primarily inhabit grassy savanna and woodlands interspersed with grassy clearings. The ainmals tend to avoid the heat during the day, when they rest in the shade.

They are usually active in the early morning, late afternoon and evening. During very hot periods, the cool and rid themselves of external parasites by bathing in mud in shallow pools. Ceratotherium simum.