15/08/2025
🧐It's Friday Trivia.
⚠️Did you know?
This creature was once roamed around in our province, Cagayan.🤔
The joins the celebration of . Did you know that Rhinoceros philippinensis, a now extinct species, once roamed Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City, Cagayan and Kalinga?
Rhinoceros or “rhinos” are large mammals, known for the giant horn (or horns) that grow from their snouts. These “horns” are not actually true horns because they are composed of keratin, a fibrous protein found in our hair and fingernails. Today, there are only five living species of rhinoceros. The black rhino and white rhino in Africa, and the greater one-horned rhino, Javan rhino, and Sumatran rhino in Asia. But did you know that there was once a small, endemic species living in the Philippines?
This species is called Rhinoceros philippinensis. The first fossils of this extinct herbivore were teeth and bones discovered in 1936 in Laya, Cagayan. They were identified as a new species based on features found in the premolars. On May 13, 1965, a portion of right upper jaw with two well-preserved molars and one broken one (featured below) was unearthed in Fort Bonifacio in Metro Manila. It was preserved under thick, compacted volcanic ash deposit of the Guadalupe Formation. Since then, more than a hundred fossils were recovered particularly in Cagayan Valley. One of them is a tibia (featured below) – one of the animal’s lower leg bone. This tibia is small, comparable with the Black and Sumatran rhinoceros. Measurements of the molars and postcranial materials confirmed that the rhinoceros was small in size.
In 2013, a team of international and local researchers led by Dr. Thomas Ingicco from the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle unearthed an almost complete skeleton of R. philippinensis in an archeological site in Rizal, Kalinga Province. The volcanic materials that covered these fossils gave a maximum age of 1 million years while the tooth and sediment was dated around 700,000 years +/- 70,000. Interestingly, these bones have bludgeoned and cutting marks, which suggests that early humans were in the Philippines 700,000 years ago.
Today, the estimated number of living rhinoceros are down to approximately 30,000. Three of the five species (black, Javan, and Sumatran) are critically endangered. In addition to habitat destruction, poaching and illegal trade of rhino horns, which are valued for making ornamental dagger handles and in traditional medicines have led to their dramatic decline. As we celebrate the World Rhino Day, let us help by not buying rhino horn products and supporting conservation initiatives.
Text and poster by Jiles Arvin A. Vergara and Jaan Ruy Nogot, NMP GPD
