 Reference Base  A new historic record of the Sumatran rhinoceros in north... |
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Choudhury, A., 2005. A new historic record of the Sumatran rhinoceros in north-eastern India. Pachyderm 39: 91-92, figs. 1-2
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| Location: |
Asia - South Asia - India - NE Border States |
| Subject: |
Distribution |
| Species: |
Sumatran Rhino |
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While on a visit to Noklak area (26°12’ N, 95°00’ E) in Tuensang District, Nagaland (fig. 1), on an awareness campaign as part of an Oriental Bird Club–WildWings Conservation Award in February 2004, I received reports of past sightings of a ‘two-horned hairy and small rhinoceros’. Noklak is near the northern part of the Saramati mountain range that separates India and Myanmar (Mr Chingla and others, pers. comm.). There had been past reports from the Saramati area, from both India and Myanmar (Tilson and Traylor-Holzer 1993; Rabinowitz et al. 1995; Choudhury 1997). After talking with a cross-section of elderly people, I re ceived word of a skull. I visited the Noklak village above the town and located the skull in a villager’s house. The rhino reportedly had been speared to death by two hunters, probably around the turn of the 20th century, from the mountain tops north-east of Noklak near the present India–Myanmar border. The skull could not be measured as it was fixed quite high, and being old, any attempt to bring it down would have damaged it. The skull lacked the nasal bone, which was apparently damaged when its reportedly tiny horns were removed. Three molar teeth on the right side were in good condition. The villagers of Noklak area belong to the Keimnugan Naga tribe. They regard this skull with reverence and splash water on it when there has been no rain for many days and on similar occasions they observe. This specimen is probably the first from Nagaland as earlier records were all merely reports of sighting by hunters and villagers. Considering this skull’s importance, the grandson of the hunter, in whose house it now is, and the villagers should be convinced to place it in a museum, perhaps at Kohima.
Mr Shinj, age 80, the grandson of Musanj, one of the hunters (the other hunter was Musanj’s brother, Shanji).
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