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Rhino`s Plight |
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For further information please click to the different images! |
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It is at the onset of the Tertiary, about 65 million years ago, that we find the first signs of rhino-like animals on earth. The Tertiary lasted approximately 50 million years and rhino-like animals thrived during this period. They were present in a variety of forms and attained such high numbers that this time could be called `the age of the rhinos`. The rhino trail is relatively easy to follow through the mist of early time. However, with several lines of rhinos and rhino-like animals evolving parallel to one another, the explanation of their evolution is complex. |
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Rhino belong to the mammalian order Perissodactyla, the odd-toed ungulates. The only surviving members of this order are the tapirs, five rhino species and the horse family. We have little say in the eventual extinction of the species, for in evolutionary time this is inevitable. Like their close relatives the tapirs of the South American and south-east Asian jungles, rhino are primitive representatives of a line that is approaching the end of its evolutionary cycle. Man can, however, reduce the destructive pressure from his own kind so that the five remaining species of rhino can become extinct in the natural course of evolution many years from now, rather than in the `geological second` represented by our own brief appearance on earth. Only five species of rhino survive today, grouped into one family. These living monuments of a forgotten era live in Asia, which has three species, and Africa, with two species. The causes of the extinction of the early rhino forms - habitat changes and hunting by man - remain the biggest threat to the five remaining species, four of which are in serious danger of being exterminated. Today, only the white rhino exists in comfortable numbers. |
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