AP-Rare Rino Spotted in India

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Monday March 8 1:10 PM ET

Rare Rino Spotted in India

GAUHATI, India (AP) - Villagers on India's border with Myanmar have reported
sighting the rare two-horned Sumatran rhinoceros, a species once believed
extinct in the Indian subcontinent.

Recent sightings in the far eastern Indian states of Manipur and Nagaland
suggest the hairy Sumatran rhinoceros are surviving on the subcontinent,
said Anwarudding Choudhury, chief executive of the Rhino Foundation.

There are about 230 to 400 Sumatran rhinos in the world. More than 50
percent are found in Indonesia.

The Sumatran rhino is smaller and hairier than the one-horned Indian rhino,
with an average height of four feet.

``Going by reports received from tribal villagers in Manipur and Nagaland,
there could be at least 10 to 15 Sumatran rhinos in India,'' Choudhury said.

The Sumatran rhinos once roamed the wet savanna grasslands from the
foothills of the eastern Himalayas in Bhutan and northeastern India to
Indonesia. But with poachers killing the animal for its horn, believed to
have certain aphrodisiac properties, the species reportedly became extinct
in the early 1920s.

Choudhury said reports indicated at least two Sumatran rhinos were killed.

Among rhino species, the Javan rhinos are the most endangered, with an
estimated population of only about 60.