Potentially viable population present
Potentially viable population present, Sumatrensis
Potentially viable population present
Total number probably under 400, including 24 in captive breeding programs
Potentially viable population present.
Potentially viable population present.
Potentially viable population present
At least ten rhino were poached, cf. Santiapillai & McKinnon 1993
Potentially viable population present
Potentially viable population present.
Potentially viable population present.
confined to lowland forests.
Animals should be moved between regional ex situ plans and into protected reserves in order to maximize opportunities for reproduction and maintain demographically and genetically healthy populations, regardless of historical subspecies designations.
Potentially viable population present, Sumatrensis
There is no strong evidence supporting more than one conservation unit for Sumatran rhino. Chromosomal conservation and degree of sequence divergence make outbreeding depression an unlikely outcome if individuals, or their gametes, are translocated as part of a conservation management plan.
Tracks found up to 2000 m in elevation
Historically Sumatran rhinos used habitats that included lowland forests and natural clearings. Their presence in upland forest and mountainous regions.
Evidence for significant evolutinary differences between geographically separated populations of Sumatran rhino based on mitochondrial DNA sequence divergence and morphological characters is lacking.
The threat of extinction of the evolutionary distinct Dicerorhine lineage is high.
17 Sumatran rhinos were sequenced for 953 bases of 12S and 16S mitochondrial sequences. The 17 rhinos came from Sumatra (6), Borneo (4) and West Malaysia (7). Four haplotypes were identified. Only one haplotype was found in the samples from Borneo, one haplotype in samples from West Malaysia, and two haplotypes from Sumatra animals. Four sites were variable, position # 133, 179, 194 in the 12S sequence and position # 313 in the 16S sequence. The Borneo haplotype differed by 2 positions from Sumatran and 3 positions from Malaysian. West Malaysia and Sumatra vary by one position for one of the Sumatran haplotypes and by two positions for the other Sumatran haplotype. This supports the subspecies designation by Groves (1967) placing the Malayan and Sumatran populations together as D.s.sumatrensis and the Borneo population as D.s. harrissoni. Dicerorhinus sumatrensis variable nucleotide sites Site No.,Sumatra 1,Sumatra 2,Malaysia,Borneo 133 (12S),C,C,G,C 179 (12S),C,C,C,G 194 (12S),C,C,C,G 313 (16S),C,G,G,C Sumatra 1 = studbook nos. 22, 24, 27, 28, 33 Sumatra 2 = studbook no. 6 Malaysia - studbook nos. 1, 7, 13, 15, 19, 20, 23 Borneo = studbook no. 17, 26, 31, 38
Rhinoceros are chromosomally very conservative. Rhinoceros unicornis, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, Ceratotherium simum all have karyotype 2n = 82, even though they last shared a common ancestor more than 15 million years ago.
The two subspecies differ in DNA composition, they apparently diverged from a common ancestor about 2 million years ago.
This method (PAA) involves successive searches for fixed differences among aggregations of local populations. Characters are attributes that are not polymorphic and are unique within populations. Traits are attributes that may be polymorphic and are not unique to a population.
Total genomic DNA was isolated for all blood samples by previously described standard phenol/chloroform isolation procedures.
A method employing a chelating resin (Chelex 100 BioRad) optimized for forensic samples was used to isolate DNA from the shed hair and skin samples (Amato et al.1995).
Deforestation, commercial hunting for their horn.
