- The world’s last known male northern white rhinoceros died in Kenya on 19 March 2018
About white Rhinoceros
- White rhinos are the second-largest land mammal, they are also known as the square-lipped rhinoceros
- Name white rhinos come from the Afrikaans, a West Germanic language, word “weit” which means wide and refers to the animal’s mouth.
- The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies: The southern white rhinoceros, with around 20000 wild-living animals in the year 2015, and the much rarer northern white rhinoceros. The northern subspecies has very few remaining individuals, with only two confirmed left in 2018 (two females), both in captivity
- Distribution: The majority (98.8%) of the southern white rhinos occur in just four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya.The northern white rhino formerly ranged over parts of northwestern Uganda, southern Chad, southwestern Sudan, the eastern part of Central African Republic, and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
- IUCN status:
- Southern white rhinoceros– Near Threatened
- Northern white rhinoceros- Critically Endangered
