#Save the rhino

[anotherhumansthings]

This video makes me laugh because why are you yelling at a rhino like it's your neighbour's pet😂

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Sporting two impressive horns, the black rhino, which weighs up to 1,350 kilograms (3,000 pounds), isn’t really black at all.

Much like the “white” rhino, it’s a muddy-gray color.

As the story goes, English settlers in South Africa mistook the Afrikaans word “wyd” (meaning “wide” in English), used to describe the mouth shape of the larger of the two rhinos, for the English word “white.”

So, naturally, black was then used to refer its smaller, pointier-lipped relative. Or, others suggest the name reflects the dark color it turns after a muddy wallow.

Consistent hunting and land clearance throughout the early and mid 20th century reduced the black rhino population to an estimated 100,000 by 1960.

In the following decades, large-scale poaching intensified, causing a 98% collapse in population size, with total numbers reaching an all-time low of 2,354 in the mid 1990s.

This prompted drastic and concerted conservation efforts across several African countries to help save the critically endangered species.

A ban on black rhino trade, the expansion and stricter protection of their home ranges, and relocation programs involving unusual methods have resulted in a remarkable recovery.

According to the IUCN, 6,421 black rhinos were recorded across the continent in 2024.

🩶🦏🩶

[djhenryhall]

The Plight of South Africa's Rhinoceros

While the bond between a rhinoceros mother and calf is nothing short of extraordinary, these gentle giants face an existential threat - rhino poaching.

Rhino mother and calf Our guide alerted us to the dire Rhino poaching crisis and emphasized the importance of removing location (latitude and longitude) data before sharing any content on social media. As the sun dipped towards the horizon, we deliberately paused for a cherished ‘sundowner’—a delightful African bush happy hour. The guides were busy arranging beverages and snacks, and it was at…

[ollieworm]

Hi slayers. This December I’ll be doing a charity run with Save The Rhino and helping raise money for them. All the money they receive goes straight to conservation efforts, from keeping rhinos safe to reducing illegal horn trade. Please if you can, consider donating! Even a reblog is helpful :)

[serpentface]

The (now extinct) utosai, the last of the great lacetors.

Lacetors are a clade of warmblooded reptiles that fill niches as large grazers. The only genera surviving in the contemporary are relatively small (averaging about the size of cattle), but many older species grew bigger than elephants. Utosai were the last remaining members of this branch, dwindling towards extinction as their once vast grasslands experienced rapid desertification over a period of a mere few millenia, becoming the massive, mostly uninhabitable desert region colloquially known as the Deadlands.

They would historically live in herds consisting of one male, several (sometimes dozens of) females, and their associated young, which would migrate vast distances to follow seasonal rains. Males would fight each other to gain control of their mates or tempt away singular females, with young males roaming in bachelor herds. As reliable grasslands grew sparser, these herds grew much smaller, with the last remaining utosai being found largely as small bands of females and lone, wandering males that would opportunistically mate when they were lucky enough to find each other.

Utosai had very thick scaly skin that folds in plates, in part a vestigial defense mechanism against large predators that had LONG vanished. Like many other lacetor, they had partly bony facial pads that grew large and colorful in males as display features. Their tremendous curving horns served predominantly as additional display features, while the smaller, jutting horns partly figured into intraspecies combat, with males standing side by side and front to back and swinging these horns at each other in ritualized combat behavior.

These horns were clearly of value to the people who once inhabited the same ranges as utosai, as their ivory figured heavily into their craftwork and holy objects and can be found near-ubiquitously in the burials of high ranking people in the east interior Deadlands. These surviving utosai ivory artifacts are of tremendous value, with the mere prospect of obtaining them tempting many graverobbers and other such wealth-seekers into the remains of ancient human settlements (a mostly futile and often deadly task, most accessible tombs have already been plundered and those still left in peace are hidden deeply beneath the sands).

Utosai lasted far longer than many of their counterparts, surviving on (and trapped within) dwindling patches of coastal grassland fed by ocean rains, too isolated within stretches of desert for any chance of migration to grasslands further from the equator. These last fragmentary populations were discovered by traders and treasure seekers sponsored by the early 2nd Burri empire, with many hatchling utosai being taken back overseas hundreds of miles north. It is unknown when the last wild utosai died, but all but the tiniest fragments of their coastal grasslands are gone and the great beasts are nowhere to be found.

The captive animals were bred in Bur and eventually produced a relatively large (and heavily inbred) population, probably maxing out at around 1000 individuals. They were never truly domesticated but could be made tame and well accommodated to handling, which eventually developed into their use as mounts, forming an elite cavalry unit used in warfare. A war utosai was outfitted with a shielded tower upon its back from which archers could fire from height, and would be driven by a rider on its neck. Their use was functionally similar to irl war elephants, being utilized for intimidation, to scatter enemy formations, and to lead (or break) charges. These were the largest animals that most people would have ever seen, and were often reckoned as nigh-invulnerable. The utosai was heavily used in Bur's wars of conquest, and became an esteemed animal emblematic of the second Burri empire's might.

Very few consistently effective counters to the war utosai were discovered during the duration of their use. One very famous, very successful counter was used by the pre-Wardi Ephenni tribe in its war of independence against the second Burri empire (which was already beginning to collapse). The province of Ephennos was of key import to the empire as a breadbasket, being highly fertile lands and providing much of the grain that sustained the empire. A cavalry of ten utosai (a VERY excessive number against a less well-trained, less well-armed group of soldiers) was brought overseas to assist in crushing dissent and were devastating in battle, with only two of the ten being killed in three years of protracted warfare.

In an act of cleverness, desperation, or both, a trio of khait were covered in pitch and set ablaze, and spurred into hurtling towards the bulls in the utosai cavalry. The utosai panicked and fled, trampling many Burri soldiers in the process and utterly destroying their formations, with three of the eight utosai falling onto their sides (weighed down by their towers) and killed by Ephenni soldiers. This allowed for victory in battle, and this victory ultimately turned the tide in favor of the kingdom of Ephennos and its eventual independence. A motif of three khait wreathed in flames is still widely used in this region and as emblematic of Ephenni heritage (who, while broadly assimilated into Wardi nationality, still retain a sense of individual identity, and pride in their city-state being a center of power and birthplace of kings within Imperial Wardin).

The use of utosai in warfare dwindled after the discovery of this fairly effective counter. They were no longer reckoned as nearly invulnerable, and the great cost of transporting and feeding these animals became increasingly inviable. Captive breeding began to dwindle along with their use in warfare. The last utosai were lost, killed, or slowly died off in the Burri wilderness during and after the empire's tumultuous collapse. Some folklore describes hidden populations surviving in some wilder areas- there are several places in Bur where people claim to sometimes see the silhouettes of these great beasts against the horizon, and the rural parts of Ephennos are rumored to have a few of them (perhaps descendants of the surviving war utosai, perhaps their ghosts). Otherwise, they are lost to the world.

[glitterspaghettiketchup]

Person who suspects it has ADHD tries to do a lengthy art challenge, the result will shock you

YEAH I DIDNT FORGET ABOUT THIS MUAHAHA!!! Medical school may have drained me but my first semester is DONE so i can do art and shit again!!!!

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #SaveTheRhinoDay 🦏:

René Lalique (French, 1860-1945)

1. Rhinocéros paperweight, Model 1195, 1931 frosted glass, L 11.5 x H 8.5 cm

2. Original plaster model, 1931 H 8.3 x W 11.5 x D 2.5 cm

[not-souleaterpost]

The suprisingly bad plot of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

So I played this little fun Jet Set Radio clone (don't worry, it ties into the iceberg, so I wasnt technically procrastinating with video games-)

And the thing that stuck out besides the expected and fun is how the story was bad. In a surprising way - not as "oh I didnt expect it to suck so much!!!" But nah, what I mean is that it failed in a interesting way.

So what do I mean?

Well lets start with the whole setup "Oh yeah, you get your head chopper of and are actually just a random scrap metal robot controling a should-be lifeless body."

This is weird enough, but the fact that there is that much head switching and body stitching is just strange, you wouldnt really expect that from a skating game - hell it makes the casual light-bulb eye-switching from Naruto look tame in comparison.

Still, one could guess that its just a quirky thing (or more disturbingly that some of the developers gets off from it, like not the weirdest thing that exist) - just some funny detail to get attention and stand out.

But not, this thing actually is the crux of the whole "theme" and "charachter arc"

And its weird that this kind of game trys that, like if mario struggled with alcholism as a framing decice for generic platformer #64. Cause why do something that is overly ambitious and will fail?

Like this game sadly failed - the whole search for "roots" just felt kinda unatural and as if the people were living in a different world from you (like ok I get it the society literally is that much weirder, but I mean in a sense of just procecing information and emotions differently than a standard human would)

Just the fact that the charachters feel empty and you dont really connect with them or their relationships makes everything hollow - yet its weird that they tried at all - cause yeah in the end in Jet Set Radio, nobody gives a shit about that stuff, we just wanna ride the line with carefull cartoon charicatures.

Yet still the story decided to introduce plot twist, thematic foils, villians with pseudo-arcs, drama etc.

But somehow it doesnt get how at the same time it just doesnt work on a basic level - like after its revealed that not only that Faux guy killed Felix for a petty reason but also is about to kill all other Graffiti pals, its kinda irellevant that his "big secret" was "Oh your dad kept you out of trouble"

Yet the game plays that up as some final all revealing shocker, and even gives Faux a death mirroring Felix initial fall.

Also the whole arc of Felix is both weird and at the same time something that seems to be trying to say something - from starting as some random smart hair-dryer, to it being revealed that he secretly was a legendary skater with amnesia, and the whole "you are both now"-

I get kinda that they tried to say "look he died partly because of his arrogance and not letting others be close may sparked Faux's psychopathy", but still at the end it just doesnt click, you know what Im saying - the first thing after coming to life with no memory is "Oh I wanna paint the city, yeah why not and find my original head even if its not really mine" and then "Oh I guess I learned the power of friendship, even if we interacted minimally and in the end only the final thematic attack showed the use of bonds"

Like yeah, it showed literally moments how without other people he would be dead but still it was so subdued that its weird to do a whole story like that.

Especially a story as whacky as it - with a evil skater head taking over the police and brainwashing everyone to do his biding while becoming a giant centipede monster.

But the weirdest part is that it even had the whole meta-commentary about how yeah it IS a rip-off and one cant escape that, but like, we are totally something new too guys!

But guess the only really clever writting was the set up of that weirdo with angel wings actually having a absurd but believable reason for overhearing everything lol.

Yet other things just go nowhere - the sniper kinda disapears from the story, there are obvious times where you are just sent in circles for padding, etc.

And that last thing is kinda what leads me to my attempt to reverse engineer the story -

I would guess they started with the wacky desing of the main guy and someone though "but why do he be having that crazy head thou?"

And from that it sparked the idea, well he lost the head - and that connected with the whole "identity" thing especially when they had to think if they were making something creative or just puppetering the corpse of a dead, head-team less corpse of a faux legendary franchise (I dunno why I said faux, I like JSR, but I had to tie in the names)

The details came later, hence why DJ Cybers Mask is supposedly Felix's, even though it doesnt fit the latter - cause yeah the charachter designs werent made like that originally.

And thats why there is some weird padding and moments - cause of budget reasons some things had to be stretched, or maybe some things had to be used in a way to maximise what one has done and to not throw away some cool concepts, even if they clash.

Also, Im not knocking this associative way of coming up with storys, just speculating if thats how it all came together.

Still, the fact that the story isnt just "Yeah we are rebels and here are police, lets fight!" without any of the before mentioned window dressing is surprising.

And, being non-generic is a positive surprise, no matter the execution - so see, this "essay" wasnt shitting on this game afterall.

(also contrast for a simmilar story that is unsurprisingly bad - Gravity Rush - but I'll save that for another time, man I wish that games creative direction was done by someone else, cause the gameplay itself has moments of being more fun than a lot of things...)

Oh also the proof that this all relates back to the Soul Eater iceberg - see what I found (sadly not first, cause I googled and some redditor noticed 2 months ago, alas if I played this game way back I would have had this eternal glory, not shame😔):

And if you say: That's it? I expected more!:

Yeah...Sorry

[rabbitcruiser]

Save The Rhino Day

Save the Rhino Day, celebrated globally on May 1, is a day centered around raising awareness of the rhino’s plight in the world, and highlighting ways to help this incredible animal. This day is especially important given the current devastating statistics — on average, one rhino is poached somewhere in the world every 22 hours. On this day, various animal rights organizations, non-profit companies, zoos, animal activists, and other concerned groups provide opportunities to encourage more rhino conservation efforts from people around the world.

History of Save The Rhino Day

To trace the origins of the Rhinoceros, we’d have to go back some millennia — almost 56 million years ago, to be precise. That’s when the first ancestors of the modern Rhinos roamed the planet. They were more horse-like in structure and had no horns. Old rhino bones found from this period in North America show a gradual evolution from this old horse-like structure into one more aligned with today’s rhino. Over these years, there were three distinct species that scientists think might be the ancestors of today’s rhinos. One of these was called the ‘running rhino,’ which was adapted for speed.

Another was more aquatic and resembled today’s hippopotamus. The last, most direct ancestors to the modern rhinoceros appeared approximately 25 million years ago and had multiple sub-species in their families. Of these, the wooly rhinoceros was one of the largest subspecies, weighing in at almost four times the size of the average African elephant, and boasting one-meter-long horns. This species inhabited a large area, from Siberia to the British Isles. These plant-eaters lived alongside the wooly mammoths, and have been found fossilized in ice and in cave paintings made during that period.

These rhinos only lived in Asia initially but began traveling to other places around 25 million years ago. Over time, these rhino ancestors roamed the continents, primarily living in Eurasia (Europe and Asia combined) and North America. However, the American rhinos went extinct sometime between 5.4 and 2.4 million years ago.

Rhinos have also featured in many Asian and African legends — they are the fire-stamping heroes in many stories from Burma, India, and Malaysia. According to these stories, rhinos appeared every time a fire was lit in the forest and would stamp out the flames. So popular is this tale that it even featured in a popular 1980 South-African movie named “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”

Unfortunately, these once-abundant creatures have lost out to human activity. Hunting, and now, poaching and habitat loss, have drastically reduced the number of rhinos across the world. Rhino horns are also integral to traditional medicine in many parts of Asia, with people believing it has mystical powers. Since 2007, there has been a sharp increase in poaching activity and illegal trade of rhino horns, to the extent that many subspecies of rhinos have been declared extinct and the entire rhino population is listed as ‘endangered’.

Save The Rhino Day timeline

1973

A Symbol of Queer Identity

Two Boston artists, Daniel Thaxton and Bernie Toale create a lavender rhinoceros as a symbol to increase awareness of gays and lesbians and put it in a series of subway posters.

2011

No More Black Rhinos

The Western Black Rhino — which used to live in Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Sudan, and South Sudan — is declared extinct because of excessive poaching.

2012

A Ray of Hope

For the very first time, a Sumatran rhino — the smallest of the rhino family — is born in captivity in the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia; this miracle repeats in 2016, and then in 2022.

2018

A Sad Farewell

The world bids goodbye to the last known male northern white rhino; only two females survive to this day.

Save The Rhino Day FAQs

What day is World Rhino Day?

On September 22 each year, the global community celebrates the rhinoceros and explains what people can do to help them.

How many rhino species are there?

At present, there are five species of rhinos in the world — the white rhino and the black rhino (both found in Africa), and the Indian, Javan, and Sumatran (all found in Asia).

Are rhinos endangered?

The black, Javan, and Sumatran rhinos are still listed as ‘critically endangered,’ while the entire species is classified as ‘endangered.’

How to Observe Save The Rhino Day

Learn about the rhinoceros: Uncover more interesting information about this magnificent animal. Watch documentaries featuring the rhino, read books and other literature about them, and discover more studies and research that show just how the rhino lives.

Visit a rhino: Why not go see a rhinoceros in real life? Check out rhinos at a local zoo or plan a trip to visit rhinos in the wild.

Help save the rhino: Research the efforts various groups make towards saving the rhino, and check out what you can do to help. These could include online volunteering services, donations of funds, and more.

5 Fun Facts About The Rhinoceros

The rhino communication method: Rhinos make funny sounds — like snorting, sneeze-like sounds, and even honking — and use their bodily waste to 'speak' to other rhinos.

They don't have 20-20 vision: Rhino eyesight is notoriously poor, so much so that if an animal only 100 feet away — in an open space, too — stood motionless, the rhino wouldn't be able to spot them.

How the white rhino got its name: This rhino isn't actually white — English explorers mistook the Afrikaans 'wyd,' which refers to the huge girth of this animal, as 'white' and the name stuck.

Their horns are like our nails: Rhino horns are made up almost entirely of keratin, which is also the protein found in human hair and nails.

And still, people steal their horns: Even as rhino horns are proven to have no health benefits, signs in museums — like the National Museum of Scotland — notify visitors that the horn on display is a replica, as the real one has been stolen.

Why Save The Rhino Day is Important

It helps increase awareness: Rhinos are becoming increasingly rare in the wild, and only continuous efforts to raise awareness, like celebrating Save The Rhino Day, can help this endangered species. Do your bit today to support rhinos.

Creating safe havens for rhinos: The spike in awareness such days provide also subsequently raises the amount of help being offered to save the rhinos. These increased efforts could help secure various safe and protected spaces for the rhino to survive and thrive.

Building a rhino-loving community: Conservation efforts have had a significant impact in the past — various subspecies of rhinos have seen their numbers gradually increase over the years as a result of these activities. After these celebrations, we are left with a passionate and motivated global community that wants to see the rhinoceros flourish in the decades to come.

Source

[subby-sab]

Today is 1st of May.

Today is May Day / International Labour Day, Worthy Wage Day, Save The Rhino Day, National Mantra Day.

[reasonablyneurotic]

I need to start drawing the one who grips Faust she has been carrying me since day one

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Victory! 🐘

Canada has officially banned the elephant ivory and rhino horn trade, which includes the import of hunting trophies containing these parts!

@HSI_Canada has been at the forefront of the battle to protect these endangered species, working with Environment and Climate Change Canada to ensure these measures pass.

We also want to thank YOU and the tens of thousands of supporters who signed our action alerts to help make this happen.

🩶🎉🩶

[djhenryhall]

Rhino's spotted in South Africa during a game drive and just before sundowers.

[space-ninja-fashion-show]

Begging ppl not to bring companions that need to be revived to an archon hunt

Only half our squad survived the interception today, and one of them died specifically bc they went down at the same time as two companions and I looked at all the red gibberish floating on the opposite end of the map and decided that i am Not getting involved in that petting zoo and risking losing my tower in the process

And then turns out there was a squadmate in that clusterfuck. RIP

[oceanasky]

"Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end."

on endlings, and despair

Hey, y'all. It's...been a rough couple of weeks. So, I thought--better to light a single candle, right?

If you're familiar with wildlife conservation success stories, then you're likely also familiar with their exact polar opposite. The Northern White Rhino. Conservation's poster child for despair. Our greatest and most high-profile utter failure. We slaughtered them for wealth and status, and applied the brakes too slow. Changed course too late.

We poured everything we had into trying to save them, and we failed.

We lost them. They died. The last surviving male was named Sudan. He died in 2018, elderly and sick. His genetic material is preserved, along with frozen semen from other long-dead males, but only as an exercise in futility. Only two females survive--a mother and daughter, Najin and Fatu.

Both of them are infertile. They still live; but the Northern White Rhinoceros is extinct. Gone forever.

In 2023, an experimental procedure was attempted, a hail-mary desperation play to extract healthy eggs from the surviving females.

It worked.

The extracted eggs were flown to a genetics lab, and artificially fertilized using the sperm of lost Northern males. The frozen semen that we kept, all this time, even after we knew that the only living females were incapable of becoming pregnant.

It worked.

Thirty northern white rhino embryos were created and cryogenically preserved, but with no ability to do anything with them, it was a thin hope at best. In 2024, for the first time, an extremely experimental IVF treatment was attempted on a SOUTHERN white rhino--a related subspecies.

It worked.

The embryo transplanted as part of the experiment had no northern blood--but the pregnancy took. The surgery was safe for the mother. The fetus was healthy. The procedure is viable. Surrogate Southern candidates have already been identified to carry the Northern embryos. Rhinoceros pregnancies are sixteen months long, and the implantation hasn't happened yet. It will take time, before we know. Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end.

The first round may not take. We'll learn from it. It's what we do. We'll try again. Do better, the next time. Fail again, maybe. Learn more. Try harder.

This will not save the species. Not overnight. The numbers will be very low, with no genetic diversity to speak of. It's a holding action, nothing more.

Nothing less.

One generation won't save a species. But even a single calf will buy us time. Not quite gone, not yet. One more generation. One more endling. One more chance. And if we seize it, we might just get another after that. We're getting damn good at gene editing. At stem-cell research. In the length of a single rhino lifetime, we'll get even better.

For decades, we have been in a holding action with no hope in sight. Researchers, geneticists, environmentalists, wildlife rehabbers. Dedicated and heroic Kenyan rangers have kept the last surviving NWRs under 24/7 armed guard, line-of-sight, eyes-on, never resting, never relaxing their guard. Knowing, all the while, that their vigilance was for nothing. Would save nothing. This is a dead species--an elderly male, two females so closely related that their offspring couldn't interbreed even if they could produce any--and they can't.

Northern white rhino conservation was the most devastatingly hopeless cause in the world.

Two years from now, that dead species may welcome a whole new generation.

It's a holding action, just a holding action, but not "just". There is a monument, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the last white rhinos have lived and will die. It was created at the point where we knew--not believed, knew--that the species was past all hope. It memorializes, by name there were so few, the last of the northern white rhinos. Most of the markers have brief descriptions--where the endling rhino lived, how it was rescued, how it died.

One marker bears only these words: SUDAN | Last male Northern White Rhino.

If even a single surrogate someday bears a son, we have erased the writing on that plaque forever.

All we can manage is a holding action? Then we hold. We hold hard and fast and long, use our fingernails if we have to. But hold. Even and perhaps especially when we are past all hope.

We never know what miracle we might be buying time for.

[miled72]

Depending on the type of your project, you might need a different set of tools for your Rhino window's layout. In this tutorial, you will learn how to save multiple window layouts for later use. Also, this is useful when Rhino, for some reason, resets your layout when you open it.