Talk:Sumatran rhinoceros

Outdated map
Hi, appreciate if someone can update the map found at the beginning of this article. There are no Sumatran rhinos left in the Malay Peninsula, and there is only one remaining female rhino in Sabah (northern Borneo), therefore the map is no longer accurate. 203.106.220.77 (talk) 08:51, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Merge proposal
As with Javan Rhinoceros, I'd like to propose a merge of the three subspecies articles, Western Sumatran Rhinoceros, Eastern Sumatran Rhinoceros and Northern Sumatran Rhinoceros. In addition to these names being slightly dubious (these geographical names are not common in the literature), the subspecies are not, in my opinion, different enough to warrant their own articles. Their sizes are slightly different, as is their geography, but otherwise they are the same. Or, in other words, if the articles were comprehensive they would be 95 percent redundant. Just as Javan Rhinoceros has dealt comprehensively with three subspecies, I believe we can do the same here. --JayHenry 08:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Makes sense, especially if these subspecies hardly differ except in their distribution. Shyamal 01:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, my research in connection with the documentary, The Littlest Rhino did not find any conclusive evidence that there are any significant differences. the specimen of harrisoni we saw in Sabah was significantly more hairier, but this is explained by a natural response to environmental factors and is reportedly common in all 'sub species'.  comment added by Asiageographic 06:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Refs at end
These need to be cleaned up. I find it better to make the footnotes short, Harvard citation-like, and list the references proper in a separate section, not as footnotes. This will help keep the maintext code concise and avoid that inexperienced editors mess up the referencing, such as here (all the references will have to be retraced because it's impossible to say now where they actually belong). Dysmorodrepanis 12:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I moved those sources to the bottom while I worked on other bits, to see if they were even worth retrieving. I don't think most of them are.  As far as I can tell, they weren't actually used in writing the original article.  Somebody just dumped lots of sources at the bottom at some point.  As for Harvard citations, I'd be a little reluctant to do this.  There's a one-to-one ratio of sources to footnotes.  If we split it up into a references and footnotes section they will be one-hundred percent redundant. --JayHenry 21:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

primitive basal
I changed primitive to "less derived." The reference article uses primitive, but it discusses primitive traits, not the most primitive species. This section in this article is unclear as someone commented. The reference article on 5 extant species shows two strong clades, the Dicerotina and Rhinocerotina, with Dicerorhinus not in either clade. The authors place Dicerorhinus as sister to the Rhinocerotina but admit support for it as sister to the African rhino clade is an equally likely topology and the clade Dicerorhinus-Rhinocerotina (their choice) is not as strongly supported as the other two clades (Dicerotina and Rhinocerotina). Other molecular studies have placed Dicerorhinus in a sister group with the Dicerotina, not with the Rhinocerotina. The discussion on primitive traits does not say it most resembles its Miocene ancestors. Can someone quote the reference article on this? --Amaltheus (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * My reference for it resembling the Miocene ancestors was:


 * Dinerstein, Eric (2003). The Return of the Unicorns; The Natural History and Conservation of the Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08450-1.
 * Dinerstein has a chapter on evolution. He says that his synopsis of rhinoceros evolution draws heavily on:


 * Prothero, D.R., C. Guerin, and E. Manning. 1989. The history of Rhinocerotidae. In D.R. Prothero and R.M. Schochs, eds, The Evolution of Perissodactyls., pp. 322-40. New York:Oxford University Press.
 * Regrettably, I was unable to obtain a copy of The Evolution of Perissodactyls -- the library I use doesn't it stock it and I'm ineligible for interlibrary loan. --JayHenry (talk) 04:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A derivative source is okay for an encyclopedia I think? Even better for a general encyclopedia, than the technical work.  But can you tell me what the first book says about most "resembling its Miocene ancestors" so to make clear what is meant by this?  It seems Dicerorhinus has a lot of basal traits that may be derived according to the one paper, making it necessary to find a source to make this clear.  --Amaltheus (talk) 06:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Direct quote is "Of the living Asian rhinoceros, the Sumatran rhinoceros has changed little from its Miocene ancestors." Also from the Mammalian Species account  we have "...it closely resembles certain Miocene species, the Sumatran rhino may be regarded as a living fossil."   Thanks for your diligence in making sure I've interpreted this correctly (and if I haven't do set me straight!) --JayHenry (talk) 06:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem, I like this article. You interpreted and used the statement correctly from the sources.  But the Sumatran rhino has a few million to tens of millions of years of evolution in its genes not found in its ancestors' bones that make comments like this pointless.  Maybe "The Sumatran Rhinoceros is considered the least derived of the extant species as it shares more traits with Miocene ancestors from the fossil record than other rhinos.[4]"?
 * Can this image be added with someone putting the Sumatran rhino in black, leaving the others in color, or put the others in shades of gray or just outlines? Size is important in large land mammals, particularly a rhino, and this comparison has meaning to the story of the rhinos.


 * --Amaltheus (talk) 06:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the nice comments! I agree that your wording for that sentence would be better.  I could change the color on the image easily, but I hadn't added it for a different reason.  I wasn't sure how accurate it was.  Seems to show Indian rhinos significantly bigger than White rhinos, but that doesn't seem to be supported by anything I've read.  I'm about to head off for the evening, but will follow up tomorrow.  Thanks again for the help! --JayHenry (talk) 06:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I like Rhinoceros... They smell good... I also like eggs... They smell good too... Not as good as Rhinoceros's though... but they still smell good... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hidden from site (talk • contribs) 14:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Medicine
I didn't get it clearly from the article - Does (or doesn't) the chinese medicine use the horns of the sumatran rhinos? At the first place it is mentioned that they are highly valued, and in the "conservation" chapter it is mentioned that some belief about this use was found wrong. If the answer is yes (the chinese does use ...), what use exactly is it then? Yours, User:Yaron (he) 17:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It is used very much in Traditional Chinese Medicine and is very highly valued. The later section says it was never used as an aphrodisiac.  It's used for many purposes such as a painkiller, for fevers, for delirium, etc.  Just not any sort of sexual use. --JayHenry (talk) 03:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

New pictures
I took some pictures of a Sumatran rhinoceros that seem more clear than the ones used here. I've uploaded them to the Wikimedia Commons. The best one is here.. I took them at the Toronto Zoo. As I'm a newbie here, I haven't changed anything.

Baffledexpert (talk) 17:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Conservation timeline.
So the article says that in 2004 an outbreak of surra brought the population of captive rhinos down to 8, and then this number dwindled so that by 1997 only three remained. Um, does this make sense to anyone?


 * Hmm... something got messed up there. I'll try to figure out what that timeline is supposed to be. --JayHenry (talk) 04:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

D. s. sumatrensis Merge proposal
A new article, D. s. sumatrensis has recently been created (apparently from scratch). Since it was previously been agreed (above) to merge the sub-species back into this article, it would seem reasonable to do the same again. I have left a message to this effect with the article creator and on the article talk-page. --CharlieDelta (talk) 19:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, if any unique information exists in that new article, it should be added here of course. FunkMonk (talk) 15:48, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * May I also suggest that the new article D. s. harrissoni created by the same editor be merged here as well, for the same reasons? Filing Flunky (talk) 09:04, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You may. FunkMonk (talk) 13:19, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I also vote yes.Absurdist1968 (talk) 21:23, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * On this note, how about Northern Sumatran rhinoceros? FunkMonk (talk) 08:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I suggest leaving the harrissoni and lasiotis pages, seeing as each of them have a unique history not fully covered here, especially for the former subspecies. BronxZooFan (talk) 20:34, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Merging means the info will be moved here, not deleted. This article is not even near the recommended article split-limit (more than 10,000 kb). FunkMonk (talk) 20:37, 30 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Now two subspecies articles with little if any unique information have been split off, and should probably be merged back. Pinging who did the split. FunkMonk (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Problem
Cite 9 of this article is a full book and there are no page numbers given for each cite. This could threaten its FA sttaus. LittleJerry (talk) 01:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Discrepancies
"In 1814 the species was given a scientific name, by Johann Fischer von Waldheim, a German scientist and curator of the State Darwin Museum in Moscow, Russia."

Our article State Darwin Museum says the museum was founded in 1907, and certainly there was nothing named after Darwin anywhere in 1814. Further, there is an image of a stuffed rhino calling it the last captive specimen (died 1972) right next to a paragraph describing captive specimens in Cincinnati in the last decade. I'm not sure what is intended in either case or I would fix it myself. Srnec (talk) 22:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The now stuffed specimen was the last individual in captivity by the 1970s, not ever. FunkMonk (talk) 23:06, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Dicerorhinus split
Since there are several prehistoric species other than the one this article is about, the genus page should perhaps be split? Other language Wikis have long done this. FunkMonk (talk) 05:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If there's something to write about, I don't see why not. However, I don't see much point if it's going to be an un-wikilinked list with no contextualising prose. CMD (talk) 14:25, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Genetic lineages (Distribution and habitat)
I think there should be a better summarisation of the referenced research (Morales). It is talking about 4 examined population in which they found NO difference between 2 populations (Malay penn. / East Sumatra), found slightly distinct the pop. of West Sumatra, and found large difference of Borneo pop. compared to these. (So, these are the 3 lineages) The difference is big enough among them that can not be explained by that Sumatra AND Borneo was part of the continental shelf during last ice age, because it must come from earlier. So there was a semiarid North-South boundary between Sumatra and Borneo, while between the Malay penn. and East Sumatra did not have such boundary, and the West Sumatra pop. was separated by Barisan Mountains however much earlier (Cretaceous) but was not that srict boundary.

Also I think, to the interbreeding part (between and among these lineage) it could be added that researchers examine mithocondrial DNA, and not nuclear, so they warn against to involve Borneo pop. because they do not have proper examinations on the effect of breedig, and it is better to avoid demage untill more examinations clarify it or results of other programs prove no harm of it.

Please refine the section. (My english is not perfect for this, and also I am an engineer...) Thanks JSoos (talk) 23:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

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Range Map
Might I suggest someone making a new range map for this species as the current one is quite out of date. The population on the Malaysian Peninsula is thought to have gone extinct, as has the one in Sabah, and a new population has been discovered in East Kalimantan. I'd do it myself, but I'm not entirely sure how. BronxZooFan (talk) 20:37, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, the Sumatran rhino "was common in China prior to the 5th century BCE" source: https://www.ancient.eu/article/1143/armour-in-ancient-chinese-warfare/ 2602:306:3810:540:3847:3CC9:D333:33D6 (talk) 16:14, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

-- This article could help make a new range maps: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/10/explore-atlas-sumatran-rhino-critically-endangered-conservation/ BronxZooFan (talk) 04:35, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

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