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On December 20, 2009, eleven years ago, a rhino named Sudan arrived at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, which for 33 years had lived in a zoo in Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic. Google remembers it in today’s doodle because Sudan, who died at 45 on March 19, 2018, was a special rhino, truly one of a kind – it was the last male northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), a subspecies of the white rhinoceros probably considered extinct in the wild. There are still only two living specimens of the species: the female Najin and Fatu, 31 and 20 years old, and respectively daughter and granddaughter of Sudan.
Sudan, April 28, 2016 (Pan Siwei / Xinhua via ZUMA Wire, ANSA)
Sudan got its name because it was in Shambe Park, Sudan, that it was captured along with five other rhinos of its kind, in 1975, when it was two years old. Their home country has also changed its name since then: today Shambe Park is part of South Sudan. Sudan is believed to be the last northern white rhino to be born in the wild and not in an artificial facility. Since 2000, no new white rhinos have been born, even in zoos. At the time of the capture of Sudan, there were still about 700 northern white rhinos according to scientists’ estimates. In the past, the species lived in Uganda, Chad, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At the Dvůr Králové Zoo, in the north of today’s Czech Republic, Sudan weighed 2,200 kilos. Over the years it bred three times, but only two of the cubs, two females, survived. In 2009, after northern white rhinos were declared extinct in the wild, Sudan and three other northern white rhinos were brought to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. It was hoped that when they returned to their natural environment, the rhinos would be able to mate with each other, but this was not possible. Sudan was repressed in 2018 after about a month of a serious illness related to its old age, the equivalent of 90 human years, Google explains.
Najin, left, and Fatu, right, on March 30, 2018 in Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya: They are the last two remaining northern white rhinos (Lyu Shuai / Xinhua via ZUMA Wire, ANSA)
However, attempts are still being made to try to save the species through in vitro fertilization. Last year, seven eggs from Najin and Fatu were successfully artificially fertilized with sperm – stored frozen – from previously dead males. The idea is to try to implant healthy embryos in female southern white rhinoceros (Ravelobensis snub), in the hope that they can carry a pregnancy to term. At least three embryos have been obtained – also in an Italian laboratory, in Cremona – but for now they are stored frozen, waiting for it to be possible to try to give birth to new northern white rhinos with female southern white rhinos as mothers. substitutes.
Google has decided to remember Sudan and its history as a “symbol of the ongoing efforts to safeguard rhinos and a warning about the risk of extinction facing many species today.”
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