page_title: Javan rhinoceros
section_title: Distribution and habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Javan rhinoceros / Distribution and habitat
context_page_description: The Javan rhinoceros, also known as the Sunda rhinoceros or lesser one-horned rhinoceros, is a very rare member of the family Rhinocerotidae and one of five extant rhinoceroses. It belongs to the same genus as the Indian rhinoceros, and has similar mosaic, armour-like skin, but at 3.1–3.2 m in length and 1.4–1.7 m in height, it is smaller. Its horn is usually shorter than 25 cm, and is smaller than those of the other rhino species. Only adult males have horns; females lack them altogether.
  Once the most widespread of Asian rhinoceroses, the Javan rhinoceros ranged from the islands of Java and Sumatra, throughout Southeast Asia, and into India and China. The species is critically endangered, with only one known population in the wild, and no individuals in captivity. It is possibly the rarest large mammal on Earth, with a population of as few as 58 to 61 in Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of Java in Indonesia. The Javan rhinoceros population in Vietnam's Cat Tien National Park was declared to be locally extinct in 2011.
context_section_description: Even the most optimistic estimate suggests fewer than 100 Javan rhinos remain in the wild. They are considered one of the most endangered species in the world. The Javan rhinoceros is known to survive in only one place, the Ujung Kulon National Park on the western tip of Java.
  The animal was once widespread from Assam and Bengal (where their range would have overlapped with both the Sumatran and Indian rhinos) eastward to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and southwards to the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra, Java, and possibly Borneo. The Javan rhino primarily inhabits dense, lowland rain forests, grasslands, and reed beds with abundant rivers, large floodplains, or wet areas with many mud wallows. Although it historically preferred low-lying areas, the subspecies in Vietnam was pushed onto much higher ground (up to 2,000 m or 6,561 ft), probably because of human encroachment and poaching.
  The range of the Javan rhinoceros has been shrinking for at least 3,000 years. Starting around 1000 BC, the northern range of the rhinoceros extended into China, but began moving southward at roughly 0.5 km (0.31 mi) per year, as human settlements increased in the region. It likely became locally extinct in India in the first decade of the 20th century. The Javan rhino was hunted to extinction on the Malay Peninsula by 1932. The last ones on Sumatra died out during World War II. They were extinct from Chittagong and the Sunderbans by the middle of the 20th century. By the end of the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese rhinoceros was believed extinct across all of mainland Asia. Local hunters and woodcutters in Cambodia claim to have seen Javan rhinos in the Cardamom Mountains, but surveys of the area have failed to find any evidence of them. In the late 1980s, a small population was found in the Cat Tien area of Vietnam. However, the last individual of that population was shot in 2010. A population may have existed on the island of Borneo, as well, though these specimens could have been the Sumatran rhinoceros, a small population of which still lives there.
caption: Java's Ujung Kulon National Park is the home of all remaining Javan rhinos.
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