Advertisement

Your morning adorable: Indian rhinoceros calf nuzzles his mother at the Berlin Zoo

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Berlin Zoo, no stranger to adorable baby animals, is celebrating the birth of one more this week: A male Indian rhinoceros calf born Sunday to mother Jhansi.

Indian rhinos (also known as great one-horned rhinos or Asian one-horned rhinos) are native to -- you guessed it -- parts of India, as well as neighboring Nepal. They also have perhaps the best scientific name we can think of (rivaling even the western lowland gorilla‘s scientific name, Gorilla gorilla gorilla) -- Rhinoceros unicornis!

Although Indian rhinos are classified as endangered, the International Rhino Foundation describes the effort to save the species as ‘one of the two greatest success stories in rhino conservation,’ the other success story being that of the southern white rhino. Although there are believed to be fewer than 3,000 Indian rhinos in the wild today, at one point during the 20th century there were less than 200.

Advertisement

RELATED:
The Year in Cute: 2009’s 20 most adorable animals
Your morning adorable: Hand-raised rhinoceros calf plays ball in Germany

-- Lindsay Barnett

Advertisement