Hello,

I'm a french zookeeper and I'm working with Rhinos in Zoo de Lunaret, Montpellier...

I'm able to say that lacking black fringes on ears is absoluty not a mean to distinguish Southern WR from Northern WR.

Effectively, our young male, Jobi (who born at Suffolk Safari Park) has these black fringes on his ears, somethat longer that in Norther subspecies !!!
And one of our females, Mafunyane, has these black finges too, and she comes from South Africa...

thnx for the info Todds

And about the rhino's. I've been to Dvur and saw the rhino's but i never saw any difference so i tried to find it on the internet but i never found any information regarding hairy fringes. The only information i found about the differences that i recollect was regarding a larger/smaller hump on the back.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that some sites report a very large (for subspecies) difference in genetics but i don't know if that was scientific or not...

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My Zoo-Photo's (soon more to be added): http://jwer.fotopic.net

Okay, I stand corrected....

From what you say, it seems some White rhinos have the hair fringes, but not others? I do have some postcards of the male Northern White which used to live at the London Zoo, and he had hair fringes on the ears. I've seen photos of(some of) the Northern Whites at Dvur Kralov and they seem to have them to.
I also looked closely at Whipsnade's(Southern) whites recently and none of them seemed to have them.

But I'll take your word that its nothing to do with the subspecies....

Please look the Jobi's ears fringes.
Sorry for the photo's poor quality!

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Vinch
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/4...2951sv3cn9.gif

Yes, I've just looked at a whole lot of photos/postcards of Southern White Rhino in zoos. About 50% of them seem to have hairy ears.....

I did a little research and found the following morphological differences described in literature:

The Northern white has a more exaggerated flat nose than the southern type. Lydekker, R., 1908.
The Southern White appears to have more hair (in the adults) than occurs in the Northern Race Alexander, A.; Player, I.C., 1965. (hey, it’s colder in the South)

The Northern White has somewhat higher legs and a less long body than the Southern Race. Skinner, J.D.; Smithers, R.H.N., 1990.


Hope this helps, the differences appear to be very small though.

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RRC - Rhino Information

Maybe, maybe...

But In ours four Southern White Rhinos, I 'm able to say that:
- the young male, Joby, is very high legged and proportionaly shorter body. If he has fringed ears, he is hairless on his body.
- the old male Cassius has no fringed ears, he has hair on his body and a very large flat muzzle.
- a female, Mafunyane, is very hairy, very high legged, long bodied, has fringed ears (less than Joby's ears).
- and the other female, Jabulani, is very short legged, short bodied, has fringed ear (as Mafu's ears), and hairless body... Her muzzle is very flat.

Cassius, Jabulani and Mafunyane came from South Africa... Joby is born in Suffolk Safari Park and he belongs to Southern race...

I think that the White Rhinos vary too considerably in size, hairs, proportions, shape, so it is no possible to make a diagnosis for Southern or Northern race ...
And the most reasonnable analysis is only caryotyping or DNA determination....

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Vinch
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/4...2951sv3cn9.gif

The question should be: if the two subspecies are so similar, why not crossbreed them instead of starting with an extremely small founding population? There have been speculations that this crossbreeding might interfere with future reintroduction plans, as the Southern subspecies might not be adapted to the habitat of the Northern subspecies. However, then why not at least "try" F1 hybrids, like the one specimen at Dvur?

As far as i am aware, the difference is mainly genetical. Therefore, when trying to keep the animal in this world why would you crossbreed. To save some of the northern white rhino's genetics? You could do that in a "frozen" DNA databank...

If it was up to me, i'd say either try and keep the northern white's pure or let them die out and replace them with southern whites when the area is calm enough and there are enough spare ones around. Having hybrids around won't really help anything would it?

Why would reintroduction plans fail with pure southern whites btw, as far as i know they are remarkably similar so i don't see a problem with reintroduction of pure whites...

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My Zoo-Photo's (soon more to be added): http://jwer.fotopic.net

@jwer: Let's take a look how many Northern White Rhinos exist:
-probably ~4 in the wild
-2 (1,1) in SDWP, one not fertile, one not behaviorally receptive
-Dvůr Králové Zoo: 7 (3,4) "pure" and one hybrid; as far as I remember, only one of the males and two of the females are considered for mating

All in all a pretty small founding base, even if additional animals from Uganda are brought in.

About possible reintroduction problems: one would be the resistance of the Southern Whites against certain diseases there that do not occur in their native range. One example could be Nagana, a protozoan disease (especially Trypanosoma congolense as well as other trypanosomes) transmitted by tsetse-flies (Glossina sp.). Most populations of Southern whites occur below the "tsetse-fly belt" (i.e. the habitat of tsetse flies in Africa), while the Northern whites live in this very area. Northern's seem to cope with trypanosomasis and might even be parasite carriers without negative consequences for the animal; whether this is also true for the Southern whites-?
For comparison, a map of the distribution of the white rhinos (orange = Northern, green = Southern)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hite_rhino.png
and the distribution of tsetse flies:
http://www.au-ibar.org/isctrc/26Meet...s/image018.jpg

Even if SF movies want to make You otherwise- it's not "just": put the "genes" in the freezer, then later on put them into the microwave-and presto: You've got a Northern White Rhino! Trust me, it's not that easy. Instead, one should rather use now what is available.

I can't see the idea in hybrids either. I say: Freeze their genes so we have an ultimate backup plan, and attempt to breed with the ones we have. It looks like a hopeless task, but it's not impsossible yet.

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I am Toddy, a zoo-enthusiast from Denmark!
Different zoos visited: 67
Favourite animal: Aardvark
Website: www.zoos.dk
My zoo-gallery: ZooPhotos

Let's explain the positive effects of hybridisation: instead of decreasing the genetic diversity of a small group by even carefully planned inbreeding, why not fuse the small with a healthy, only minimally different, yet compatible larger group. This will not only result in an increase of the overal genetic diversity due to new genetic material brought into the larger group, but one benefit might be a positive heterosis effect, i.e the hybrids might be healthier & better adapted to the Northern whites' habitat than pure Southern whites - or heavily inbred Northern White Rhinos. Example: Peregrine falcon reintroduction in the Eastern parts of the USA.

The red-capped mangabey group in Tierpark Berlin has 2 new members - one baby born in January of unkown sex and a 22 year old female from Saarbrücken Zoo. She was the last mangabey there. The group now consist of 3.5.1 animals - one breeding male, 2 male infants, 3 adult females, 2 female infants and the new baby (whose mother is already 23). The group had the problem that for many years, only males had been born - more then a dozend in a row!! The 2 females infants (born in 2006 I believe) are therefore really good news and will hopefully secure the future of the group.

Good news. This species has a parallel history to the Drill in the UK. Formerly exhibited but not seen for several decades until Colchester, and later Newquay zoo imported some so they can now be seen at two zoos again- they are breeding at Colchester, who have had them for longer.

Cross-breeding of white rhinos should not be taken lightly as these forms have more or less been separated longish.

The Dvur plan which is entirely secret .. (and sadly has come under heaps of neg media attention) would see all northern whites relocated to another African country in an effort to stimulate breeding.

I cannot divulge any further for fear of comprimising the source!