Museum specimens as Noah’s Arc of lost genes. The case of a rhinoceros from Sumatra in the Zoological Museum Hamburg

Abstract

Understanding past and present genetic diversity, in particular in endangered species such as the rhinoceroses, is of paramount importance for a series of aspects in natural history, evolutionary systematics and conservation. As it turned out from several recent studies even in eminent museum specimens the historical context including its provenance often remains unresolved. At the same time modern molecular genetic techniques make this material more and more available also for integrative studies. With probably less than fifty extant specimens, among the Asian rhinoceroses the Javan rhinoceros, Rhinoceros sondaicus, is one of the most critically endangered mammal species, rendering also each of its rare museum specimens of great significance. We here apply available DNA isolation and sequencing techniques to a horn of a specimen housed at the Zoological Museum in Hamburg with indication as to derive from the extinct conspecific Sumatra population. In comparison with already existing mitochondrial gene fragment sequence data of Asian rhino populations, we were able to verify the identification of this particular museum specimen as of the nearly equally rare Sumatran rhinoceros, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, instead as of the extremely rare R. sondaicus.

Image‐based analyses from an online repository provide rich information on long‐term changes in morphology and human perceptions of rhinos

“…We found that morphological data on rhinos were available for the full range of species, demonstrating the potential of online images in morphological studies. Despite the low sample size, we were able to identify measurable morphological differences between species, largely driven by horn size, with black and white rhinos appearing more similar to each other than Indian and Javan rhinos, reflecting their closer evolutionary relationship (Glaubrecht & Neiber, 2017; Margaryan et al, 2020; Price & Bininda‐Emonds, 2009; Willerslev et al, 2009). Despite this, there was considerable overlap in morphology, reflecting real similarity in body proportions across rhino species.…”