Populations of black rhino declined dramatically

From - World Wildlife Fund ,

By - Vinuri Randula Silva ,

Black rhinos are the smaller of the two African rhino species. The most notable difference between white and black rhinos are their hooked upper lip. This distinguishes them from the white rhino, which has a square lip. Black rhinos are browsers rather than grazers, and their pointed lip helps them feed on leaves from bushes and trees. They have two horns, and occasionally a third, small posterior horn.

Populations of black rhino declined dramatically in the 20th century at the hands of European hunters and settlers. Between 1960 and 1995, black rhino numbers dropped by a sobering 98%, to less than 2,500. Since then, the species has made a tremendous comeback from the brink of extinction. Thanks to persistent conservation efforts across Africa, black rhino numbers have doubled from their historic low 20 years ago to around 5,500 today. However, the black rhino is still considered critically endangered, and a lot of work remains to bring the numbers up to even a fraction of what it once was—and to ensure that it stays there. Wildlife crime—in this case, poaching and black-market trafficking of rhino horn—continues to plague the species and threaten its recovery.

Comments

Why did Homo sapiens outlast all other human species?

From - Live Science By Mindy Weisberger Edited by - Amal Udawatta Reproductions of skulls from a Neanderthal (left), Homo sapiens (middle) and Australopithecus afarensis (right) (Image credit: WHPics, Paul Campbell, and Attie Gerber via Getty Images; collage by Marilyn Perkins) Modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) are the sole surviving representatives of the human family tree , but we're the last sentence in an evolutionary story that began approximately 6 million years ago and spawned at least 18 species known collectively as hominins. There were at least nine Homo species — including H. sapiens — distributed around Africa, Europe and Asia by about 300,000 years ago, according to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Nat ural History in Washington, D.C. One by one, all except H. sapiens disappeared. Neanderthals and a Homo group known as the Denisovans lived alongside...

New Comet SWAN Now Visible in Small Scopes

From :- Sky & Telescope By :- Bob King Edited by :- Amal Udawatta This spectacular image of Comet SWAN (C/2025 F2) was taken on April 6th and shows a bright, condensed coma 5′ across and dual ion tails. The longer one extends for 2° in PA 298° and the other 30′ in PA 303°. Details: 11"/ 2.2 RASA and QHY600 camera. Michael Jaeger Amateur astronomers have done it again — discovered a comet. Not by looking through a telescope but through close study of publicly released, low-resolution images taken by the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) camera on the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). On March 29th, Vladimir Bezugly of Ukraine was the first to report a moving object in SWAN photos taken the week prior. Michael Mattiazzo of Victoria, Australia, independently found "a pretty obvious comet" the same day using the same images, noting that the object was about 11th magnitude and appeared to be brightening. R...

Who Was the Real Marilyn Monroe?

From - Smithsonian Magazine, By - Grant Wong Historian, University of South Carolina, Edited by - Vinuri Randhula Silva, “Blonde,” a heavily fictionalized film by Andrew Dominik, explores the star’s life and legend in a narrative that’s equal parts glamorous and disturbing Marilyn Monroe’s final interview is a heartbreaker. Published in Life magazine on August 3, 1962—just a day before the actress died of a barbiturate overdose at age 36—it found Monroe reflecting on her celebrity status, alternatively thoughtful, frank and witty. “When you’re famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way,” she observed. “It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who is she—who is she, who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe?” That same question—who was the real Monroe?—has sparked debate among cinema scholars , cultural critics , historians , novelists , filmmakers and th...

Nature Hub

Search This Blog