Human history doesn’t go back very far, and so the authors of the new paper sequenced the genomes of nine northern rhinos (the first done) and four southern rhinos from fibroblasts (connective tissue cells) frozen in time at the San Diego Zoo, stored over the past three decades.Īnalyzing genome sequences enables a look back farther in time than human memories or historical records by applying the rate of mutation of known genes to how different those genes are in cells from extant (or frozen) individuals. And even if they could have given birth, their genetic diversity would likely not have been enough to reconstitute a founding population, let alone save the subspecies. Nor did introducing a southern white rhino stud help – Najin and Fatu were infertile. Wildlife biologists moved them to the Ol Pejeta conservancy in Kenya, hoping the more natural habitat might spur romance among the two females and two males. Only four individuals were left in the world, living at a zoo in the Czech Republic. The last northern white rhino born into captivity was in 2000.īy 2008, experts considered the northern subspecies extinct in the wild. By the 1990s and into the new millennium the remaining population of 30 rhinos, in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dwindled as human violence escalated. The 1970s and 1980s brought poaching and war. The northern white rhinoceros once lived in south Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Uganda. The keratin of a rhino’s horn isn’t the same as the proteins of tooth enamel or the collagen-based ivory of an elephant, hippo, or walrus tusk or a whale’s baleen. Cut off a horn and it’ll grow back, if the animal doesn’t die. A horn’s interior includes calcium for strength and melanin for protection against ultraviolet radiation. It consists primarily of keratins, the same family of proteins that form nails, hairs, bills, beaks, and hooves. So what, exactly, is the chemical composition of a rhino horn? Nothing special. It is poachers seeking the horns, which are ground up for various applications in Chinese and Vietnamese medicine and used for supposed aphrodisiac qualities for Yemeni knife handles and merely for the bizarre thrill of disfiguring a large mammal.īird beaks and bills are made of keratin proteins. Most of these rhinos live in South Africa. The southern white rhino population is now 20,000 strong, thanks mostly to conservation efforts after poachers whittled the group down to fewer than 50 animals in the early 20 th century. simum cottoni) much worse off, called critically endangered. simum simum) near-threatened, but the northern subspecies ( C. The white rhino Ceratotherium simum is split, the southern subspecies ( C. Of the five living species of rhinoceros, the black, Javan, and Sumatran species are considered critically endangered, and the greater one-horned rhino deemed vulnerable. The Frozen Zoo houses more than 10,000 cell cultures, eggs, sperm, and embryos representing nearly 1,000 types of organisms. But genomes from stored rhino cells at the San Diego Frozen Zoo may rejuvenate at least a small founding population. When the last male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, died from an infection on March 19 at age 45 at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, only Najin and her daughter Fatu were left, and they’ve been unable to have offspring. Sudan, the last northern white rhino, posing with a Bollywood actress in healthier times, 2015. Steiner, from the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research and director of the study. “Our study demonstrates the emerging role for whole genome sequencing analysis to evaluate the potential for population recovery,” said Cynthia C. Such efforts may appear to be too late for the brink-of-extinction northern white rhino, but results of a new study published in Genome Research offer hope: genome sequences of nine northern white rhinos reveal a genetic diversity that may provide a way to save them. The Rhino Rescue Project captures rhinos, injects dye into their horns, then releases them, the stain rendering the appendage less desirable to hunters. Tracking devices on the animals detect an increase in heart rate when danger approaches, like a FitBit wearer encountering a dog that’s sprung it’s invisible fence.Ī concoction of rhino keratin (the protein that forms the horn) made in recombinant yeast and rhino DNA (to mark its authenticity) offers a substitute that may keep poachers away. People are taking eclectic approaches to saving rhinos from poachers.
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