Sumatran rhinoceroses (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) have been fighting extinction for thousands of years — since the Pleistocene, according to a recent study published in Current Biology, which argues that during that period, following rising sea levels, the number of rhinoceroses fell sharply and never recovered. Today this fight appears to have been definitively lost, with Sumatran rhinoceroses destined to disappear forever and to join the ranks of extinct species, alongside the mammoth, the thylacine and the passenger pigeon. The last female of this rare species in Malaysia is, in fact, gravely ill.

Iman is unwell

The female rhinoceros, named Iman, lives in the Tabin nature reserve, a protected area in Sabah, on the Malaysian island of Borneo. Last week Iman was diagnosed with a uterine tumour; the news was announced by the Borneo Rhino Alliance, an NGO that coordinates conservation efforts for the Bornean Sumatran rhinoceros. Iman spent days hiding in her mud wallow, preventing her keepers from providing medical assistance. Augustine Tuuga, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department, believes the wallow helps the animal to ease the pain.

There is little hope

The centre's vets eventually managed to coax her out in order to administer medicines to reduce the inflammation. The illness has also affected the animal's appetite and hydration; once led into her night stall she drank a large amount of water mixed with vitamins and minerals, but still refuses to eat. Further tests will be carried out in the coming days, though there is little optimism about Iman's chances of survival.

Requiem for an ancient giant

Iman's death would further compromise the already slim hopes of reproducing the species. Fewer than one hundred Sumatran rhinoceroses are estimated to live in the wild in Indonesia, while only two rhinoceroses survive in Malaysia — Iman and a male named Tam. Six months ago another female living in the sanctuary, Putung, had died, euthanised due to an incurable skin cancer. These animals — the world's smallest rhinoceros species — once grazed in Bhutan and India, in China and Myanmar, in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, in Vietnam and on the Malay Peninsula, on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo and in Indonesia, perhaps convinced that their era would never end; but it seems there is no longer any room in this world for megafauna.