 Reference Base  Past and future breeding of the Indian rhinoceros in capt... |
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| Location: |
World |
| Subject: |
Reproduction |
| Species: |
Indian Rhino |
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Only males have reproduced beyond the age of 32 years.
First reproduction occurred earlier in females (median: 9y 2m, n = 39) than in males (median: 10y 5m, n = 31). The youngest dam giving birth was Studbook #99 at an age of 4y 4m. Studbook #86 was the youngest sire of exactly known age (8y 4m) whose offspring was live-born (#152 was 7y 7m old when his offspring was stillborn two months prematurely). The oldest dam to give birth was #29 at the age of 31y 5m. The oldest sire to become a father was the approximately 42-year-old #10.
In the present paper, we measured the observed fertility, which is based on all animals recorded in the studbook, including those animals that have never been given the chance to reproduce. If all animals had been allowed to reproduce, the measured fertility would probably be higher.
Laurie (1982) reported that in Royal Chitwan National Park the mean age of females at first parturition is about 7.1 years. Thus, on average, females reproduce earlier in the wild than in captivity. In contrast, Dinerstein and Price (1991) reported that 'all but one'of the breeding males observed in Chitwan were older than 15 years, which is much older than the captive breeding males.
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