Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Commemorating the day one of the most significant space missions to Mars was launched, November 28 is marked as Red Planet Day. On this day in 1964, the United States launched the space probe Mariner 4 on a course towards Mars, which it flew past in July 1965, sending back pictures of the red planet.

• This was the first time that a spacecraft undertook the first flyby of the red planet, becoming the first-ever spacecraft to take close-up photographs of another planet.

About the Mars

• In the late 19th century, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to have observed linear patterns on the surface of the planet that he called canali. 
• This was mistranslated into English as canals, leading some to believe canals were built by intelligent beings on Mars an early instance of Mars being thought to have life, similar to Earth.

1964: Mariner 4

• After an eight-month voyage to Mars, the Mariner 4 helped humans see images showing lunar-type impact craters, some of them touched with frost. 
• A television camera onboard took 22 pictures, covering about 1% of the planet. These photos were transmitted to Earth in four days.

Viking missions of the 1970s and the 1980s

• The Viking missions in the mid-seventies carried out the first chemical analysis of Martian soil, as well as four biology experiments to detect biological activity.
• In the early 1980s, scientists hypothesised, based on mineralogic composition and rock texture, that certain meteorites might have a source region in Mars. 
• In 1984, a study showed that the isotopic composition of rare gases (Xenon, Krypton, Neon and Argon) matched the isotopic ratios of the Martian atmosphere measured by the Viking spacecraft. 
• This discovery provided a way for geochemists to study Martian samples – and provided a huge boost to our understanding of the geochemical evolution of Mars.

Odyssey, 2001 and water on Mars

• In 2001, the Gamma Ray Spectrometer on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft detected a fascinating hydrogen signature that seemed to indicate the presence of water ice. 
• But there was ambiguity – this was because hydrogen can be part of many other compounds as well.
• NASA’s Phoenix landed on the Martian North Pole in May 2008, and survived for about 150 days. 
• The robotic arms of Phoenix scooped soil and ice from the surface, heated the material in eight ovens, and measured the composition of the gases with a mass spectrometer. 
• The Phoenix mission established conclusively that the initial discovery of hydrogen by Mars Odyssey in 2002 was indeed water ice.

Mars Missions

• NASA has a lander (Mars Insight), a rover (Curiosity), and three orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, MAVEN).
• India has an orbiter (Mangalyaan-1).
• The EU has 2 orbiters (Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter)
• China and UAE will have an orbiter each (Hope and Tianwen-1 respectively).
• The UAE mission will study the Martian atmosphere, and will seek to address the billion-dollar question of how and why Mars lost its atmosphere. 
• India’s Mars Orbiter Mission : A technology demonstration venture carried five scientific payloads (total 15 kg) collecting data on surface geology, morphology, atmospheric processes, surface temperature and atmospheric escape process.

Question: Discuss the evolution of Mars missions with special reference of Mars Orbiter Mission.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Mumbai has reported 11 fresh measles cases and one suspected death amid the outbreak of the viral infection in the city according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

Measles

• Measles is a childhood infection caused by a virus. Once quite common, measles can now almost always be prevented with a vaccine.
• Also called rubella, measles spreads easily and can be serious and even fatal for small children.
• Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus.
• Measles is caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family and it is normally passed through direct contact and through the air. The virus infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body. Measles is a human disease and is not known to occur in animals.

Signs and symptoms

• The first sign of measles is usually a high fever, which begins about 10 to 12 days after exposure to the virus, and lasts 4 to 7 days. 
• A runny nose, a cough, red and watery eyes, and small white spots inside the cheeks can develop in the initial stage. 
• After several days, a rash erupts, usually on the face and upper neck.
• Over about 3 days, the rash spreads, eventually reaching the hands and feet. 
• Most measles-related deaths are caused by complications associated with the disease. 
• Serious complications are more common in children under the age of 5, or adults over the age of 30. 
• The most serious complications include blindness, encephalitis (an infection that causes brain swelling), severe diarrhoea and related dehydration, ear infections, or severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia. 
• Severe measles is more likely among poorly nourished young children, especially those with insufficient vitamin A, or whose immune systems have been weakened by HIV/AIDS or other diseases.

Transmission

• Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases. It is spread by coughing and sneezing, close personal contact or direct contact with infected nasal or throat secretions.
• The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to 2 hours. 
• It can be transmitted by an infected person from 4 days prior to the onset of the rash to 4 days after the rash erupts.
• Measles outbreaks can result in epidemics that cause many deaths, especially among young, malnourished children. 
• In countries where measles has been largely eliminated, cases imported from other countries remain an important source of infection.

Treatment

• No specific antiviral treatment exists for measles virus.
• Severe complications from measles can be reduced through supportive care that ensures good nutrition, adequate fluid intake and treatment of dehydration with WHO-recommended oral rehydration solution. 
• This solution replaces fluids and other essential elements that are lost through diarrhoea or vomiting. 
• Antibiotics should be prescribed to treat eye and ear infections, and pneumonia.
• All children diagnosed with measles should receive two doses of vitamin A supplements, given 24 hours apart. 
• This treatment restores low vitamin A levels during measles that occur even in well-nourished children and can help prevent eye damage and blindness.
• Vitamin A supplements have also been shown to reduce the number of measles deaths.
• WHO recommends immunization for all susceptible children and adults for whom measles vaccination is not contraindicated.
• Reaching all children with 2 doses of measles vaccine, either alone, or in a measles-rubella (MR), measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), or measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) combination, should be the standard for all national immunization programmes.

Question: What are the symptoms of measles? List the steps for the prevention and treatment of this disease.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The government has shelled out Rs 9.53 crore of taxpayers’ money towards commission and printing costs of the Electoral Bonds (EBs) issued to fund political parties.

• The total amount collected by parties through EBs has gone up to Rs 10,791 crore from various anonymous donors in 22 phases since 2018 when the Electoral Bond Scheme was introduced. 
• As many as 93.67 per cent of EBs are in Rs 1 crore denomination.

Electoral Bond Scheme

• The electoral bonds are the non-interest-bearing financial instruments. 
• These Electoral bonds allow eligible donors to pay eligible political parties using banks as an intermediary. 
• The Electoral Bonds aim to ensure transparency in the funding of political parties.

Eligibility criteria for receiving and donating funds

Eligibility of Political Parties

• Only the political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 are eligible to receive funds through Electoral Bonds.
• Further, these registered political parties also have to receive not less than 1% votes in the last Lok Sabha elections or the State Legislative Assembly to receive funds through electoral bonds.

Eligibility of Donors

• Any citizen of India or entities incorporated or established in India can purchase these Electoral Bonds.
• Citizens can buy electoral bonds either singly or jointly with other individuals.

Functioning of the Electoral Bond Scheme

• The State Bank of India (SBI) issues electoral bonds in the months of January, April, July, and October.
• The electoral bonds are available in denominations from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore.
• The donors can buy electoral bonds and transfer them into the accounts of the political parties as a donation. The name of the donor is kept confidential.
• Political parties will create a specific account. This account will be verified by the ECI. The political parties will encash the electoral bonds only in this verified account.
• The bonds will remain valid for 15 days. Within that time, the political parties have to encash the electoral bond in the designated accounts.

Need for Electoral Bonds

• These bonds are aimed to reduce anonymous cash donations made to political parties. In the previous system, the political parties did not disclose the donor, the amount of donations received, etc. These anonymous donations led to the generation of black money in the economy.
• For example, Nearly 70% of the Rs.11,300 crore in political funding came from unknown sources.
• The Electoral bonds encourage political donations of clean money. According to the government, the bonds will encourage political donations from individuals, companies, HUF, religious groups, charities, etc. Since the amount is transferred through the bank, the identity of the donor can be captured by the issuing authority.

Criticism of Electoral Bonds

• Hindering Right to Know: Voters will not know which individual, company, or organisation has funded which party, and to what extent. Before the introduction of electoral bonds, political parties had to disclose details of all its donors, who have donated more than Rs 20,000.
• The change infringes the citizen’s ‘Right to Know’ and makes the political class even more unaccountable.
• Unauthorized Donations: In a situation where the contribution received through electoral bonds are not reported, it cannot be ascertained whether the political party has taken any donation in violation of provision under Section 29B of the RPA, 1951 which prohibits the political parties from taking donations from government companies and foreign sources.
• Leading to Crony-Capitalism: It could become a convenient channel for businesses to round-trip their cash parked in tax havens to political parties for a favour or advantage granted in return for something. Anonymous funding might lead to infusion of black money.
• Loopholes: Corporate Entities may not enjoy the benefit of transparency as they might have to disclose the amount donated to the Registrar of Companies; Electoral bonds eliminate the 7.5% cap on company donations which means even loss making companies can make unlimited donations etc.

Supreme Court’s Stance on Electoral Bonds:

• The Supreme Court (SC) agreed that the scheme protects the identity of purchasers of electoral bonds in a cloak of anonymity, but highlighted that such purchases happened only through regular banking channels.
• In 2019, the Supreme Court asked all the political parties to submit details of donations received through electoral bonds to the ECI. It also asked the Finance Ministry to reduce the window of purchasing electoral bonds from 10 days to five days.
• The Election Commission of India (ECI) also told the Supreme Court of India that while it was not against the Electoral Bonds Scheme, it did not approve of anonymous donations made to political parties.

Way-forward

• An alternative to electoral bonds is a National Electoral Fund to which all donors can contribute. The funds can be allocated to political parties in proportion to the votes they get. This will protect the identity of donors. Apart from that, it would also weed out black money from political funding.
• The best way to bring transparency in political funding is to put a complete ban on cash donations by individuals or companies to political parties. (At present Political parties can receive cash donation below Rs.2000)
• Further, India has to consider State funding of political parties. The Indrajit Gupta Committee on State Funding of Elections has supported partial state funding of recognised political parties.
• Further, the government have to amend the changes made in the Finance Act of 2017.

Question: What are the features of Electoral Bond Scheme and its challenges and also suggest alternative ways for funding political parties in India.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The police and forest officials in the Manipur’s Ukhrul town have been scanning “gambling dens” following reports of wild animals – dead or alive – being offered as prizes for raffle draws.

Betting for Exotic Meat in Manipur

• Wildlife activists said that there have been instances of people buying raffle draw tickets ranging from ₹100 to ₹500 to try their luck to win exotic meat.
• The larger or rarer the bird or animal or body part, the higher the price of the ticket.
• Apart from wild boars and deer, animals such as binturong (an arboreal mammal also known as bearcat), squirrels and flying foxes (bats) have been found to be on offer. 
• Different types of birds such as the grey-sided thrush and tragopans (often called horned pheasants) have also been spotted.

Binturong

• Binturong, (Arctictis binturong), also called bear cat or cat bear, catlike omnivore of the civet family (Viverridae), found in dense forests of Southeast Asia.
• Its range extends from Nepal, India, and Bhutan southward to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java and eastward to Borneo.
• It has long shaggy hair, tufted ears, and a long, bushy, prehensile tail. The colour generally is black with a sprinkling of whitish hairs.
• The head and body measure about 60–95 cm (24–38 inches) and the tail an additional 55–90 cm (22–35 inches); weight ranges from about 9 to 14 kg (20 to 31 pounds).
• The binturong is principally nocturnal and crepuscular (that is, active during twilight).
• It is found most often among the trees, using its prehensile tail as an aid in climbing. It feeds mainly on fruit, such as figs, but it also takes eggs and small animals.
• In some areas binturongs are tamed and have been reported as being affectionate pets.
• Binturongs are classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Indian scientists receive international award on behalf of snow leopard conservation alliance.

The Spain-based BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation seek to recognise and support the work done by conservationist organisations, institutions and agencies in carrying forward environmental conservation policies and projects

The Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) 

• GSLEP was created in 2013 when officials, politicians and conservationists arrived at a common conservation strategy enshrined in the Bishkek Declaration (2013) to cooperate in the conservation of this species and its habitat.
• The Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) at the headquarters of the BBVA Foundation in Madrid.
• The GSLEP Program’s secretariat is based in Bishkek, and is hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ecology and Technical Supervision of the Kyrgyz Republic.
• The GSLEP is a first-of-its-kind intergovernmental alliance for the conservation of the snow leopard and its unique ecosystem.
• It is led by the environment ministers of 12 countries in Asia that form the home range of the snow leopard. 
• These are Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The total range spans two million square kilometres.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

In the opening match of the FIFA World Cup 2022 between host Qatar and Ecuador, just three minutes’ of action had passed before the first goal of the tournament was ruled out for offside.

• One three-dimensional animation of the incident was displayed for a fleeting second or two before play restarted. 
• FIFA’s brand new Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT) was responsible for the quick decision.

What is SAOT?

• There are two parts to the technology — a sensor inside the match ball (Adidas’s Al Rihla) that is held using suspension technology, and existing tracking tools that are part of the VAR system as we know.
• Kinexon, a German company that specialises in providing sensor networks and computing solutions, has designed a small in-ball device which gives precise positional data and also detects ball movement in a three-dimensional space. 
• Every time the ball is hit, data is sent in real time (at a whopping 500 frames per second) to a network of antennae installed around the playing field. 
• Additionally, there are 12 Hawk-Eye cameras set up around the turf that shadow both the ball and the players, with as many as 29 separate points in the human body tracked. 
• The coming together of the ball sensor and the Hawk-Eye cameras is in effect SAOT, which FIFA says allows for decisions that are highly accurate and quick. 
• These two data sets are run through artificial intelligence software which generates automated alerts about offsides to the match officials. 
• This replaces the manual effort taken in poring over replays for minutes on end.

How accurate is the SAOT data?

• The data transmission rate from the ball (500 frames per second or 500Hz) makes the process pretty accurate. 
• The time between two frames is two milliseconds (1/500), which is 10 times better than a standard 50Hz video that is commonly used in High Definition monitors. 
• Further, to synchronise the data from the ball sensor and Hawk-Eye, a Precision Time Protocol clock is used. 
• FIFA tested the whole technology at both the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar and the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi.

Question: Discuss the main feature of Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT)?

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India’s SARAS radio telescope provides astronomers clues to the nature of Universe’s first stars and galaxies.

• In a first-of-its-kind work, using data from SARAS 3, researchers from the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia, along with collaborators at the University of Cambridge and the University of Tel-Aviv, estimated the energy output, luminosity, and masses of the first generation of galaxies that are bright in radio wavelengths.
• Scientists have determined properties of radio luminous galaxies formed just 200 million years post the Big Bang, a period known as the Cosmic Dawn thus providing an insight to the properties of the earliest radio loud galaxies that are usually powered by supermassive black holes.

About SARAS

• Shaped Antenna measurement of the background Radio Spectrum 3 (SARAS) telescope.
• It is indigenously designed and built at Raman Research Institute — was deployed over Dandiganahalli Lake and Sharavati backwaters, located in Northern Karnataka, in early 2020.
• The results from the SARAS 3 telescope are the first time that radio observations of the averaged 21-centimeter line have been able to provide an insight to the properties of the earliest radio loud galaxies that are usually powered by supermassive black holes.
• SARAS 3 has improved our understanding of astrophysics of Cosmic Dawn, telling us that less than 3 percent of the gaseous matter within early galaxies was converted into stars, and that the earliest galaxies that were bright in radio emission were also strong in X-rays, which heated the cosmic gas in and around the early galaxies.
• It is used to reject claims of the detection of an anomalous 21-cm signal from Cosmic Dawn made by the EDGES radio telescope developed by researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) and MIT, USA.
• This refusal helped restore confidence in the concordant model of cosmology that was brought into question by the claimed detection.
• The analysis has shown that the 21-cm hydrogen signal can inform about the population of first stars and galaxies.

About the study

• Scientists study the properties of very early galaxies by observing radiation from hydrogen atoms in and around the galaxies, emitted at a frequency of approximately 1420 MHz.
• The radiation is stretched by the expansion of the universe, as it travels to us across space and time, and arrives at Earth in lower frequency radio bands 50-200 MHz, also used by FM and TV transmissions.
• The cosmic signal is extremely faint, buried in orders of magnitude brighter radiation from our own Galaxy and man-made terrestrial interference.
• Therefore, detecting the signal, even using the most powerful existing radio telescopes, has remained a challenge for astronomers.
• Usage: Even non-detection of this line from the early Universe can allow astronomers to study the properties of the very first galaxies by reaching exceptional sensitivity.

Question: What are the key characteristics of India’s SARAS radio telescope?

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Scientists discover five new species of black corals living thousands of feet below the ocean surface near the Great Barrier Reef.

• Australian scientists used the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s remotely operated vehicle – a submarine named SuBastian – to explore the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea.

About black corals:

• Black corals can be found growing both in shallow waters and down to depths of over 26,000 feet (8,000 meters), and some individual corals can live for over 4,000 years.
• Many of these corals are branched and look like feathers, fans or bushes, while others are straight like a whip. 
• Unlike their colourful, shallow-water cousins that rely on the sun and photosynthesis for energy, black corals are filter feeders and eat tiny zooplankton that are abundant in deep waters.
• Black corals or antipatharians are colonial animals which are related to sea anemones and stony corals.
• They are named for the colour of their stiff, black or brownish skeleton.
• More than 150 species of black corals have been described. At least 14 species of black corals are currently known from Hawai’i.
• Distribution: Black corals are found in all oceans, but are most common in deep water habitats of tropical and subtropical seas.
• Black corals are carnivores.

Corals

• Corals are marine invertebrates or animals not possessing a spine. Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grows when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.

Types of corals: Hard coral and soft coral.

• Hard corals, also called hermatypic or ‘reef building’ corals extract calcium carbonate (also found in limestone) from the seawater to build hard, white coral exoskeletons.
• Soft coral polyps, however, borrow their appearance from plants, attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors. Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years and these growing multiplying structures gradually form coral reefs. They are the largest living structures on the planet.

The major types of coral reefs are:

• Fringing Reefs: These are coral reefs that grow in shallow waters and in areas of low rainfall runoff, primarily on the leeward side. They closely border the coastline or are separated from it by a narrow stretch of water.
• Barrier reefs: These grow parallel to the coast, but are separated from land by a lagoon. Example: Great Barrier reef, Queensland, Australia
• Atolls: These grow surrounding (or partly surrounding) an island which then sinks relative to sea level. Example: Maldives consists of 26 atolls.

What is coral bleaching?

• Bleaching happens when corals experience stress in their environment due to changes in temperature, pollution or high levels of ocean acidity.
• Under stressed conditions, the zooxanthellae start producing reactive oxygen species, which are not beneficial to the corals. So, the corals expel the colour-giving zooxanthellae from their polyps, which exposes their pale white exoskeleton, giving the corals a bleached appearance. This also ends the symbiotic relationship that helps the corals to survive and grow.
• Bleached corals can survive, depending on the levels of bleaching and the recovery of sea temperatures to normal levels.
• But, severe bleaching and prolonged stress in the external environment can lead to coral death.

Threats

• Ocean Acidification
• Overfishing and Overharvesting of corals
• coral bleaching
• Sunscreen chemicals
• Many corals are threatened by illegal harvesting for jewellery.

Coral Diversity

• In the so-called true stony corals, which compose most tropical reefs, each polyp sits in a cup made of calcium carbonate.
• Stony corals are the most important reef builders, but organ pipe corals, precious red corals, and blue corals also have stony skeletons.
• There are also corals that use more flexible materials or tiny stiff rods to build their skeletons—the sea fans and sea rods, the rubbery soft corals, and the black corals.
• The fire corals (named for their strong sting) are anthozoans, which are divided into two main groups.
• The hexacorals have smooth tentacles, often in multiples of six, and the octocorals have eight tentacles, each of which has tiny branches running along the sides. All corals are in the phylum Cnidaria, the same as jellyfish.

Location of coral reefs:

• Coral reefs are mainly found in tropical seas (30°N to 30°S )where the sea is shallow (less than 100m); and  warm (usually between 25° and 29°C).
• They are also found in cold waters (temperature as low as 4°C) at depths between 40m to 2000m. 
• Unlike tropical corals, they don’t need sunlight to survive and don’t have zooxanthellae living in their polyps. 
• They feed solely by capturing food particles from the surrounding water.
• Example: They are found off the coast of Norway’s Røst Island,

In India, coral reefs are located in 7 regions:

• Goa coast
• Kerala coast
• Palk Bay,
• Gulf of Kutch
• Gulf of Mannar
• Lakshadweep islands
• Andaman and Nicobar islands

Question: What are the corals? Highlights the physical conditions for their growth and also show the their location in India.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Several smartphones have their Bluetooth settings on discovery mode as it is a default setting, making it easy for hackers to access the phones when they are within 10 metres from the device. This is done through a process called Bluebugging.

What is Bluebugging?

• Bluebugging is a form of hacking that lets attackers access a device through its discoverable Bluetooth connection.
• Once a device or phone is bluebugged, a hacker can listen to the calls, read and send messages and steal and modify contacts.
• It started out as a threat to laptops with Bluetooth capability. 
• Later hackers used the technique to target mobile phones and other devices.

How does Bluebugging work?

• Bluebugging attacks by exploiting Bluetooth-enabled devices. The device’s Bluetooth must be in discoverable mode, which is the default setting on most devices.
• The bluetooth enabled device must also be within a 10-metre radius of the hacker.
• The hacker then tries to pair with the device via Bluetooth. Once a connection is established, hackers can use brute force attacks to bypass authentication. 
• They can install the malware in the compromised device to gain unauthorized access to it.

Which devices are susceptible to Bluebugging? 

• Any Bluetooth-enabled device can be bluebugged. 
• Wireless earbuds are also susceptible to such hacks. 
• Apps that enable users to connect to their TWS (True Wireless Stereo) devices or earbuds can record conversations.

What are the techniques to prevent bluebugging?

• Turning off Bluetooth and disconnecting paired Bluetooth devices when not in use.
• Updating the device’s system software to the latest version
• Limited use of public Wi-Fi.
• Using VPN as an additional security measure.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

In a major setback to rhino conservation in Africa, the proposal to downgrade the status of southern white rhino from Appendix I to Appendix II was accepted at the 19th Conference of Parties (COP19).

• The COP19, organised by Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Panama City, accepted the proposal by Botswana and Namibia to degrade the status. Wild animal species listed in Appendix I include those threatened with extinction.
• The animals named under Appendix II may not necessarily be threatened with extinction, but trade of such species should be controlled to ensure it does not threaten their existence.
• The proposal was confirmed after it received 83 votes in favour, 31 against it and 13 abstentions.

White Rhino

• Southern White rhinos are the second largest land mammal after the elephant.
• White rhinos are also known as the square-lipped rhinoceros due to their square (not pointed) upper lip.
• Two genetically different subspecies exist, the northern and southern white rhino and are found in two different regions in Africa.
• The IUCN Status of White Rhino is Near Threatened. The IUCN status of its subspecies is as follows:
• Northern White Rhino: Critically Endangered
• Southern White Rhino: Near Threatened

Southern White Rhino

• The southern white rhino and northern white rhino are subspecies of the white rhino. Aside from living in different parts of Africa, they differ slightly in the shape of their teeth and heads, appearance of skin folds, and amount of hair.
• In general, southern whites are a little larger and hairier. Contrary to the species name, both subspecies are Gray in colour.
• “White” may be taken from the Afrikaans word for “wide,” in reference to their mouths, which are wide and square to help them graze on grass.
• Common Name: Southern white rhinoceroses
• Scientific Name: Ceratotherium simum simum
• Diet: Herbivore

Habitat and behavior:

• Nearly 99 percent of southern white rhinos live in the savannas of Kenya, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, though the vast majority are found in South Africa.
• White rhinos are semi-social and territorial. They stay together in herds on the grassy plains and mark their territory with strategically placed deposits of dung.
• Threats: It is mostly threatened by habitat loss, continuous poaching in, and the high illegal demand for rhino horn for commercial purposes and use in traditional Chinese medicine.