A major finding of the study, important from the point of view of conservation efforts, is that of the loss of genetic diversity in rhinoceros populations in recent years due to rapid population declines. The paper asserts that “the principal divergence among the rhinoceros lineages is related to the geographical division between species on the African and Eurasian continent.The third clade comprises the Indian and Javan species.A second clade comprises Sumatran, Merck, and woolly rhinoceroses. One clad comprises the black and white rhinoceros species, both from Africa.The findings lend support to the geographical hypothesis and identify three major clades for the rhinoceros family.The study assembled and examined genomes from eight rhinoceros species.One theory, known as the ‘horn hypothesis’, emphasises horn morphology, and puts the Sumatran, the black, and the white rhinoceros species together for they have two horns.There are primarily three theories governing the story of rhinoceros evolution.Subsequent extinctions resulted in five extant species – the black, white, Sumatran, Indian, and Javan rhinoceroses – and four extinct ones – the Siberian, Merck, narrow-nosed and woolly rhinoceroses.The family then evolved into over a hundred species distributed across the world, but only nine of them survived to the Late Pleistocene age (14 to 12000 years ago).The rhinoceros family diverged from the tapir family some 55-60 million years ago.A clade includes species from a single common ancestor.The rhinoceros family belongs to the Rhinocerotidae clade, which also includes the tapirs.
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