Context: The Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (SC-NBWL), chaired by Union Environment Minister, approved a landmark initiative to implement a DNA-based indexing system for the greater one-horned rhinoceros.
About One-horned Rhinoceros:
What It Is?
- The Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), or the Indian Rhinoceros, is the largest of all surviving rhino species. Characterized by its single horn and thick, armored appearance, it is a mega-herbivore deeply tied to the alluvial riverine ecosystems of the Indian subcontinent.
Habitat and Distribution:
- Preferred Ecosystem: Confined to the humid tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, river valleys, and marshy shrublands of the Indo-Gangetic and Brahmaputra plains.
- Geographic Core: The global population stands at approximately 4,000 individuals, primarily concentrated in northeastern India (with Kaziranga National Park in Assam hosting over 70% of the world population) and the protected Terai grasslands of Nepal.
IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable (VU).
Historical Recovery: Represents one of Asia’s most successful conservation stories. Intensive hunting for sport and agricultural land clearing had shrunk the wild population to barely 200 individuals at the turn of the 20th century.
Key Characteristics:
- Physical and Anatomical Features:
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- Armor-Plated Appearance: Covered in a rugged, grey-brown hide marked by deep, heavy skin folds around the neck, shoulders, and flanks. This gives the animal a distinct armor-plated appearance. The skin is dotted with raised, flexible wart-like bumps.
- Internal Thermal Regulation: The deep folds contain networks of thin skin loaded with blood vessels, which act as natural heat exchangers to cool the animal down during peak summer heat.
- Massive Build: Adult individuals are massive, weighing between 4,000 and 6,000 lbs (1,800 to 2,700 kg), standing up to 6.5 feet tall, and measuring 10 to 12.5 feet in length.
- The Single Horn and Prehensile Lip
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- Composition: Unlike African rhino species that carry two horns, the Indian rhino features a single black horn measuring 8 to 25 inches in length. The horn is composed entirely of compressed keratin fibers and lacks a solid bony core.
- Prehensile Upper Lip: Features a flexible, semi-prehensile upper lip that lets the animal easily curl around, grasp, and pull up tall grasses or strip leaves off low-hanging branches.
- Diet, Social Matrix, and Behavior
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- Strict Hindgut Grazers: They are primarily grazers. Their diet consists almost entirely of tall elephant grasses, aquatic plants, tree fruits, and young shrub branches.
- Solitary Trait: They are generally solitary animals. Adults maintain loosely defined, overlapping home ranges that are not aggressively defended.
- Wallowing Congregations: While solitary by nature, multiple individuals will peacefully gather without friction around mud wallows or rich communal grazing grounds to lower their body temperatures and keep insects away.
