These are used in fighting and can inflict deep wounds. Teeth: Like all Asian rhinos, Javan rhinos have long, sharp, dagger-shaped lower incisor teeth. It is not used for fighting, but for scraping mud from the sides of wallows, pulling down food plants, and for protection of the head and nose when breaking through dense vegetation Rhino horn has the same horn structure as the hooves of horses and re-grows if broken off. The longest horn ever recorded is only about 27 cm long and is now in the British Museum in London. Males have larger horns and many females, especially in Ujung Kulon, have no horn or just have a small knob on the nose. The horn: Javan rhinos have a single horn, grey or brownish in colour, usually less than 20 cm long. ![]() Skin colour: Javan rhinos have grey or grey-brown skin, almost black when wet, with pink colouring in the folds. Lifespan: Javan rhinos are estimated to live an average of 35 to 40 years in the wild. They typically range between 900 and 2,300 kg. Weight: Javan rhinos are comparable in size to the African black rhino, though only a few animals have actually been weighed. There is not much difference in size between the males and females, and from information gathered in Ujung Kulon and from museum skeletons, there is a possibility that females are slightly bigger. It stands at 1.4 to 1.7 metres tall at the shoulder. Size: The Javan rhino is a smaller and lighter relative of the greater one-horned rhino. Sondaicus derives from “Sunda,” the name for the western part of Java, but the word is also used to indicate the main chain of Indonesian islands, the “Sunda islands” ▪ Scientific name: Rhinoceros sondaicus from the Greek “rhino”, meaning “nose” and “ceros” meaning “horn”. (This information was originally put together by Nico van Strien, in 2005 population figures have been updated as at March 2012.) Success comes slowly, as Javan rhinos are mostly solitary and females only gestate every 2-3 years, but a recent birth is what propelled their new population to 75 individuals.The Javan rhino is possibly the rarest large mammal on earth. The International Rhino Foundation and the staff of Ujung Kulon National Park work together to protect the remaining members of this critically endangered species. Their horns are highly revered in traditional Chinese medicine despite research indicating no medicinal value. This helps keep the Javan rhino’s body temperature cool and prevents diseases, but for the ecosystem, their motion provides a natural pruning system that allows the forest to stay strong, store CO 2, and pump out clean air.įor millions of years, Javan rhinos have played this essential role in their ecosystem, but human caused habitat destruction and mass amounts of poaching have decreased their numbers drastically. They also knock down and trample vegetation with their large bodies and wallow in the mud. Eating an estimated 50 kg (110 lb) of food in a day, Javan rhinoceroses help make room for new plants to grow. It is the most adaptable feeder of all rhinos with biologists identifying more than 300 different species they consume. Leaves, shoots, twigs, and fallen fruit make up the majority of the Javan rhinoceros’ diet. Javan rhinoceroses do not use their horns for fighting, but rather use them to scrape mud, pull down plants for eating, and open paths through thick vegetation. Only males in this species develop horns, female Javan rhinoceroses are the only extant rhinos that remain hornless into adulthood. Like the Indian rhino, the Javan rhinoceros has a single horn compared to the other three species which have two. They have the smallest horns of the Rhinocerotidae family, measuring less than 20 cm (7.9 in) in length. The second smallest species of rhino, Javan rhinoceros can reach a height of 1.7 m (5.6 ft) and weigh up to 2,300 kg (5,070 lb). Javan rhinoceroses are the flagship species of the Western Java Rainforests ecoregion, located in the bioregion of Javan-Bali Tropical Rainforests ( IM17) They eat large amounts of vegetation which helps the forest stay healthy so it can house more biodiversity, sequester more carbon, and produce more oxygen. ![]() Like all rhinoceroses, Javan rhinos are vital grazers. The rarest of the five rhino species, there are only 75 Javan rhinos currently living. Once, this great species roamed the islands of Java and Sumatra, throughout Southeast Asia, and into India and China, but now are only found on the tip of the Banten Province in Indonesia. With a small, black horn at the tip of their snout, leathery skin folds giving an armored appearance and weighing over two tons, the Javan rhinoceros is a fascinating sight to behold in the dense jungle of Ujung Kulon National Park. One Earth's “Species of the Week” series highlights the flagship species of each of the 844 unique ecoregions contained within Earth’s bioregions.
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