Chromolithograph
of a female Javan rhinoceros imported by London-based animal dealer Charles Jamrach
from the Sunderbans in India to London Zoo, where, sadly, it only lived for
just under 6 months in 1877 (public domain)
In 1941, Willy
Ley noted in his book The Lungfish and the Unicorn that at some stage
during the middle portion of the 1920s, a Dr P. Vageler - regularly contacted
by zoos wishing to replenish their animal collections - was seeking some
specimens of the Asian rhinos when he met up with J.C. Hazewinkel, a noted big
game hunter. After learning that Vageler required new rhinoceroses, Hazewinkel
showed him some photos of eight that he had shot in Sumatra, and which
appeared to be new in every sense of the word. For the type that they
represented — although familiar to the natives, who called it 'badak tanggiling'
(translated as 'scaly rhinoceros') - seemed to differ greatly from the form
familiar to Vageler on Sumatra.
Unlike the
known, two-horned Sumatran rhinoceros Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, the badak
tanggiling bore just a single horn. If this had been the only
difference, it could have been explained as a mere freak of nature. However,
Hazewinkel stated that the female badak tanggiling was often totally
hornless, and that the form as a whole had scaly armour and attained a length
of 10 ft. In contrast,
the female Sumatran rhinoceros is rarely if ever hornless, and the species as a
whole is hairy rather than scaly and only attains a length of 8—9 ft.
J.C.
Hazewinkel posing on the carcase of the first in the series of Javan
rhinoceroses shot by him in Sumatra
(public domain)
As Dr Vageler
readily recognized, the Sumatran rhino thus became an unlikely candidate for
the badak tanggiling’s identity. In his coverage of this episode, Willy
Ley stated that Hazewinkel’s photos convinced Vageler that a second species of
rhinoceros existed on Sumatra, and that in reply to his requests Vageler was
promised living specimens of it to send on to various zoos worldwide, but they
never arrived. Ley concluded his account by stating that the badak tanggiling
therefore remains a shadow in our zoological encyclopedias, but: “...it
may, however, be rediscovered almost any day”.
From all of this
it would seem that Ley considered the badak tanggiling to be a wholly
unknown, undescribed species. In fact, its identity is surely no mystery, for this
enigmatic creature is clearly Rhinoceros sondaicus, the Javan
rhinoceros. Not only is it of comparable size to the badak tanggiling, has
characteristically scaly armour, and is a one-horned species whose females are
indeed sometimes hornless, but at the time of Vageler and Hazewinkel it did
exist on Sumatra (but this was not widely known outside scientific circles).
Indeed, the last known Sumatran specimens of the Javan rhino did not die until
World War II.
The
first one-horned rhinoceros shot in Sumatra
by J.C. Hazewinkel (public domain)
There is a
further, more specific, piece of evidence confirming this identification. On 23 December 1933, the Illustrated London News published
an article by Hazewinkel, in which he described his pursuit and shooting of the
first of eight specimens of large, scaly, one-horned rhinoceros on Sumatra during the
mid-1920s. The photos of the animal dispel any doubt as to its identity - one
that Hazewinkel, moreover, freely announced. It was a Javan rhinoceros. Indeed,
echoing the general unawareness concerning the existence of this species on Sumatra at that time,
Hazewinkel had entitled his article ‘A One-Horned Javanese Rhinoceros Shot in Sumatra, Where It Was
Not Thought to Exist’.
Close-up
of the first Javan rhinoceros shot in Sumatra
by J.C. Hazewinkel, revealing its distinctive scaly armour (public domain)
Clearly, there
can be no question that those eight Javan rhinos shot by Hazewinkel on Sumatra in the
mid-1920s are one and the same as the eight Sumatran badak tanggiling shot
by him and mentioned to Vageler by him during that same period. Moreover, as I
discovered when researching this subject further, in 1926 Vageler actually
published a short paper in Berliner Illustrirter Zeitung (plus two
others a year later in Science News-Letter and Umschau) in which
he formally described Sumatra's Javan rhinoceros merely as a new variety (not
even a new subspecies) of the Javan rhinoceros, naming it Rhinoceros
sundaicus [sic] var. sumatrensis.
Javan
rhinoceros engraving from 1872, by Hermann Schlegel (public domain)
Evidently,
therefore, in spite of Ley's apparent assumption to the contrary, Vageler did indeed
recognise that Sumatra's one-horned rhinoceros belonged to the
Javan rhinoceros's species, and was not a separate, hitherto-unknown species at
all.
Captive
Javan rhinoceros, probably in India, photographed in c.1900 (public domain)
According to
Joseph Belmont, another animal collector for zoos, a mysterious beast known as
the scaled rhinoceros allegedly existed amidst the inhospitable, fever-ridden
swamps of Java. Writing in Catching Wild Beasts Alive (1931), Delmont
reported that this cryptic creature, supposedly distinct from the known species
of Javan rhinoceros, had only been shot twice, with no living specimen ever
having been obtained.
However, as
already revealed in this present ShukerNature blog article, the ‘armour’ of known
species of Javan rhino is noticeably scale-like, quite different from that of
its closest relative the great Indian rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis. Consequently,
it would once again seem that the creature in question is Rhinoceros
sondaicus after all.
Photograph of the Javan rhinoceros
exhibited at London Zoo in 1877,
in which its scale-like armour can be readily perceived (public
domain)
This ShukerNature blog post is excerpted and
expanded from my books Extraordinary Animals Worldwide and Extraordinary Animals Revisited. Check them out for more accounts of
mysterious and controversial forms of rhinoceros.
An adult Javan rhinoceros and calf, as
depicted in a colour engraving from 1839 (public domain)
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