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I was finally able to visit The Succulent Cafe in Oceanside today, they are located at 322 N Cleveland St, in Oceanside, CA. I had been dying to go, I follow them on instagram and just had not gotten over there. There were tons of succulents, and gardens to purchase along with Teas and Coffees. The owner was super friendly and the joint is wall to wall succulents I was so excited to be there. There were huge living walls, and vertical gardens. I snapped a bazillion pics and enjoyed every second! I enjoyed a delicious iced tea of the day, and cannot wait until my next visit!!!
Maike Möller as Katrin Hüller - Scene from the feature-film Able. Able is an apocalyptic thriller set in Berlin, Germany. Learn more about Able at Stotler/Robert Film.
Botswana, Moremi National Park, Moremi Game Reserve, Private Reserve, Farm, Chobe National park, Chobe Game Reserve, Zambia, Zambezi River, Livingstone, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Wildlife Conservation Project, Maramba River Lodge, South Africa, Krugger National Park, Okavango Delta, Kalahari region, Kalahari Desert.
Rhinoceros /raɪˈnɒsərəs/, often abbreviated as rhino, is a group of five extant species of knee-less, odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia.
Members of the rhinoceros family are characterized by their large size (they are some of the largest remaining megafauna, with all of the species able to reach one tonne or more in weight); as well as by a herbivorous diet; a thick protective skin, 1.5–5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure; relatively small brains for mammals this size (400–600 g); and a large horn. They generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter, if necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their powerful premolar and molar teeth to grind up plant food.[1]
Rhinoceros are killed by humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, and which are used by some cultures for ornamental or (pseudo-scientific) medicinal purposes. The horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails.[2] Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.
The IUCN Red List identifies three of the species as critically endangered.
The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek: ῥῑνόκερως, which is composed of ῥῑνο- (rhino-, "nose") and κέρας (keras, "horn"). The plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is crash or herd.
The five living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the Dicerotini group, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The species diverged during the early Pliocene (about 5 million years ago). The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths - white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage.
There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago. The Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (about 20 million years ago).[3] The extinct woolly rhinoceros of northern Europe and Asia was also a member of this tribe.
A subspecific hybrid white rhino (Ceratotherium s. simum × C. s. cottoni) was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo (Zoological Garden Dvur Kralove nad Labem) in the Czech Republic in 1977. Interspecific hybridisation of black and white rhinoceros has also been confirmed.[4]
While the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes (diploid number, 2N, per cell), all other rhinoceros species have 82 chromosomes.
White rhinoceros
Main article: White rhinoceros
There are two subspecies of white rhino: the southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) and the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni). In 2007, the southern subspecies had a wild population of 17,480 (IUCN2008) - 16,266 of which were in South Africa - making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world. However, the northern subspecies was critically endangered, with as few as four individuals in the wild; the possibility of complete extinction in the wild having been noted since June 2008.[5] Six are known to be held in captivity, two of which reside in a zoo in San Diego. Four born in a zoo in the Czech Republic were transferred to a wildlife refuge in Kenya in December 2009, in an effort to have the animals reproduce and save the subspecies.[6]
There is no conclusive explanation of the name white rhinoceros. A popular theory that "white" is a distortion of either the Afrikaans word weid or the Dutch word wijd (or its other possible spellings whyde, weit, etc.,) meaning wide and referring to the rhino's square lips is not supported by linguistic studies.[7][8]
The white rhino has an immense body and large head, a short neck and broad chest. This rhino can exceed 3,500 kg (7,700 lb), have a head-and-body length of 3.5–4.6 m (11–15 ft) and a shoulder height of 1.8–2 m (5.9–6.6 ft). The record-sized white rhinoceros was about 4,500 kg (10,000 lb).[9] On its snout it has two horns. The front horn is larger than the other horn and averages 90 cm (35 in) in length and can reach 150 cm (59 in). The white rhinoceros also has a prominent muscular hump that supports its relatively large head. The colour of this animal can range from yellowish brown to slate grey. Most of its body hair is found on the ear fringes and tail bristles, with the rest distributed rather sparsely over the rest of the body. White rhinos have the distinctive flat broad mouth that is used for grazing.
Black rhinoceros
Main article: Black rhinoceros
The name black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) was chosen to distinguish this species from the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). This can be confusing, as the two species are not really distinguishable by color. There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central (Diceros bicornis minor), the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa; South-western (Diceros bicornis bicornis) which are better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana and western South Africa; East African (Diceros bicornis michaeli), primarily in Tanzania; and West African (Diceros bicornis longipes) which was declared extinct in November 2011.[10] The native Tswanan name Keitloa is used to describe a South African variation of the black rhino in which the posterior horn is equal to or longer than the anterior horn.[11]
An adult black rhinoceros stands 150–175 cm (59–69 in) high at the shoulder and is 3.5–3.9 m (11–13 ft) in length.[12] An adult weighs from 850 to 1,600 kg (1,900 to 3,500 lb), exceptionally to 1,800 kg (4,000 lb), with the females being smaller than the males. Two horns on the skull are made of keratin with the larger front horn typically 50 cm long, exceptionally up to 140 cm. Sometimes, a third smaller horn may develop. The black rhino is much smaller than the white rhino, and has a pointed mouth, which it uses to grasp leaves and twigs when feeding.
During the latter half of the 20th century their numbers were severely reduced from an estimated 70,000[13] in the late 1960s to only 2,410 in 1995.[14]
Indian rhinoceros
Main article: Indian rhinoceros
The Indian rhinoceros, or the greater one-horned rhinoceros, (Rhinoceros unicornis) is now found almost exclusively in Nepal and North-Eastern India. The rhino once inhabited many areas ranging from Pakistan to Burma and may have even roamed in China. However, because of human influence, their range has shrunk and now they only exist in several protected areas of India (in Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat and a few pairs in Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal, plus a few pairs in Lal Suhanra National Park in Pakistan. It is confined to the tall grasslands and forests in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Indian rhinoceros has thick, silver-brown skin which creates huge folds all over its body. Its upper legs and shoulders are covered in wart-like bumps, and it has very little body hair. Fully grown males are larger than females in the wild, weighing from 2,500–3,200 kg (5,500–7,100 lb).The Indian rhino stands at 1.75–2.0 metres (5.75–6.5 ft). Female Indian rhinos weigh about 1,900 kg and are 3–4 metres long. The record-sized specimen of this rhino was approximately 3,800 kg. The Indian rhino has a single horn that reaches a length of between 20 and 100 cm. Its size is comparable to that of the white rhino in Africa.
Two-thirds of the world's Indian rhinoceroses are now confined to the Kaziranga National Park situated in the Golaghat district of Assam, India.[15]
Javan rhinoceros
Main article: Javan rhinoceros
The Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is one of the rarest and most endangered large mammals anywhere in the world.[16] According to 2002 estimates, only about 60 remain, in Java (Indonesia) and Vietnam. Of all the rhino species, the least is known of the Javan Rhino. These animals prefer dense lowland rain forest, tall grass and reed beds that are plentiful with large floodplains and mud wallows. Though once widespread throughout Asia, by the 1930s the rhinoceros was nearly hunted to extinction in India, Burma, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sumatra for the supposed medical powers of its horn and blood. As of 2009, there are only 40 of them remaining in Ujung Kulon Conservation, Java, Indonesia. The last rhinoceros in Vietnam was reportedly killed in 2010.[17]
Like the closely related, and larger, Indian rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros has a single horn. Its hairless, hazy gray skin falls into folds into the shoulder, back, and rump giving it an armored-like appearance. The Javan rhino's body length reaches up to 3.1–3.2 m (10–10 ft), including its head and a height of 1.5–1.7 m (4 ft 10 in–5 ft 7 in) tall. Adults are variously reported to weigh between 900–1,400 kg[18] or 1,360–2,000 kg.[19] Male horns can reach 26 cm in length, while in females they are knobs or are not present at all.[19]
Sumatran rhinoceros
Main article: Sumatran rhinoceros
The Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the smallest extant rhinoceros species, as well as the one with the most hair. It can be found at very high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra. Due to habitat loss and poaching, its numbers have declined and it is the most threatened rhinoceros. About 275 Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain.
A mature Sumatran rhino typically stands about 130 cm (51 in) high at the shoulder, with a body length of 240–315 cm (94–124 in) and weighing around 700 kg (1,500 lb), though the largest individuals have been known to weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms. Like the African species, it has two horns; the larger is the front (25–79 cm), with the smaller usually less than 10 cm long. The males have much larger horns than the females. Hair can range from dense (the densest hair in young calves) to scarce. The color of these rhinos is reddish brown. The body is short and has stubby legs. They also have a prehensile lip.
Rhinocerotoids diverged from other perissodactyls by the early Eocene. Fossils of Hyrachyus eximus found in North America date to this period. This small hornless ancestor resembled a tapir or small horse more than a rhino. Three families, sometimes grouped together as the superfamily Rhinocerotoidea, evolved in the late Eocene: Hyracodontidae, Amynodontidae and Rhinocerotidae.
Hyracodontidae, also known as 'running rhinos', showed adaptations for speed, and would have looked more like horses than modern rhinos. The smallest hyracodontids were dog-sized; the largest was Indricotherium, believed to be one of the largest land mammals that ever existed. The hornless Indricotherium was almost seven metres high, ten metres long, and weighed as much as 15 tons. Like a giraffe, it ate leaves from trees. The hyracodontids spread across Eurasia from the mid-Eocene to early Miocene.
The Amynodontidae, also known as "aquatic rhinos", dispersed across North America and Eurasia, from the late Eocene to early Oligocene. The amynodontids were hippopotamus-like in their ecology and appearance, inhabiting rivers and lakes, and sharing many of the same adaptations to aquatic life as hippos.
The family of all modern rhinoceros, the Rhinocerotidae, first appeared in the Late Eocene in Eurasia. The earliest members of Rhinocerotidae were small and numerous; at least 26 genera lived in Eurasia and North America until a wave of extinctions in the middle Oligocene wiped out most of the smaller species. However, several independent lineages survived. Menoceras, a pig-sized rhinoceros, had two horns side-by-side. The North American Teleoceras had short legs, a barrel chest and lived until about 5 million years ago. The last rhinos in the Americas became extinct during the Pliocene.
Modern rhinos are believed to have began dispersal from Asia during the Miocene. Two species survived the most recent period of glaciation and inhabited Europe as recently as 10,000 years ago: the woolly rhinoceros and Elasmotherium. The woolly rhinoceros appeared in China around 1 million years ago and first arrived in Europe around 600,000 years ago. It reappeared 200,000 years ago, alongside the woolly mammoth, and became numerous. Eventually it was hunted to extinction by early humans. Elasmotherium, also known as the giant rhinoceros, survived through the middle Pleistocene: it was two meters tall, five meters long and weighed around five tons, with a single enormous horn, hypsodont teeth and long legs for running.
Of the extant rhinoceros species, the Sumatran rhino is the most archaic, first emerging more than 15 million years ago. The Sumatran rhino was closely related to the woolly rhinoceros, but not to the other modern species. The Indian rhino and Javan rhino are closely related and form a more recent lineage of Asian rhino. The ancestors of early Indian and Javan rhino diverged 2–4 million years ago.[21]
The origin of the two living African rhinos can be traced back to the late Miocene (6 mya) species Ceratotherium neumayri. The lineages containing the living species diverged by the early Pliocene (1.5 mya), when Diceros praecox, the likely ancestor of the black rhinoceros, appears in the fossil record.[22] The black and white rhinoceros remain so closely related that they can still mate and successfully produce offspring.
In the wild, adult rhinoceros have few natural predators other than humans. Young rhinos can fall prey to predators such as big cats, crocodiles, wild dogs, and hyenas. Although rhinos are of a large size and have a reputation for being tough, they are actually very easily poached; because it visits water holes daily, the rhinoceros is easily killed while taking a drink. As of December 2009 poaching has been on a global increase whilst efforts to protect the rhinoceros are considered increasingly ineffective. The worst estimate, that only 3% of poachers are successfully countered, is reported of Zimbabwe. Rhino horn is considered to be particularly effective on fevers and even "life saving" by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, which in turn provides a sales market. Nepal is apparently alone in avoiding the crisis while poacher-hunters grow ever more sophisticated.[26] South African officials are calling for urgent action against rhinoceros poaching after poachers killed the last female rhinoceros in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve near Johannesburg.[27] Statistics from South African National Parks show a record 333 rhinoceros have been killed in 2010.[28]
Horns
Rhinoceros horns, unlike those of other horned mammals (which have a bony core), only consist of keratin. Rhinoceros horns are used in traditional Asian medicine, and for dagger handles in Yemen and Oman. Esmond Bradley Martin has reported on the trade for dagger handles in Yemen.[29]
One repeated misconception is that rhinoceros horn in powdered form is used as an aphrodisiac in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as Cornu Rhinoceri Asiatici It is, in fact, prescribed for fevers and convulsions.[30] Neither have been proven by evidence-based medicine. Discussions with TCM practitioners to reduce its use have met with mixed results since some TCM doctors see rhinoceros horn as a life-saving medicine of better quality than substitutes.[31] China has signed the CITES treaty however, and removed rhinoceros horn from the Chinese medicine pharmacopeia, administered by the Ministry of Health, in 1993. In 2011 in the United Kingdom, the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine issued a formal statement condemning the use of rhinoceros horn.[32] A growing number of TCM educators have also spoken out against the practice.[33] To prevent poaching, in certain areas, rhinos have been tranquilized and their horns removed. Armed park rangers, particularly in South Africa, are also working on the front lines to combat poaching, sometimes killing poachers who are caught in the act. A recent spike in rhino killings has made conservationaists concerned about the future of rhino species. During 2011 448 rhino were killed for their horn in South Africa alone.[34] The horn is incredibly valuable: an average sized horn can bring in much as a quarter of a million dollars in Vietnam and many rhino range States have stockpiles of rhino horn.[35][36] Still, poaching is hitting record levels due to demands from China and Vietnam.[37]
Historical representations
Albrecht Dürer created a famous woodcut of a rhinoceros in 1515, based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the animal itself and, as a result, Dürer's Rhinoceros is a somewhat inaccurate depiction.
There are legends about rhinoceros stamping out fire in Malaysia, India, and Burma. The mythical rhinoceros has a special name in Malay, badak api, where badak means rhinoceros and api means fire. The animal would come when a fire is lit in the forest and stamp it out.[38] There are no recent confirmations of this phenomenon. However, this legend has been reinforced by the film The Gods Must Be Crazy, where an African rhinoceros is shown to be putting out two campfires.
Conservation
International Rhino Foundation
Save the Rhino
Nicolaas Jan van Strien
Individual rhinoceroses
Abada
Clara
Rhinoceros of Versailles
See also: Fictional Rhinoceroses
Other
Rhinoceroses in ancient China
A wine vessel in the form of a bronze rhinoceros with silver inlay, from the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) period of China, sporting a saddle on its back
A rhinoceros depicted on a Roman mosaic in Villa Romana del Casale, an archeological site near Piazza Armerina in Sicily, Italy
Dürer's Rhinoceros, in a woodcut from 1515
Monk with rhinoceros horn. Samye, Tibet, 1938.
Indricotherium, the extinct "giant giraffe" rhinoceros. It stood 18 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed up to 20 tonnes (22 short tons).
Coelodonta, the extinct woolly rhinoceros
The thick dermal armour of the Rhinoceros evolved at the same time as shearing tusks[20]
The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest of the rhino species
Smaller in size than the Indian rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros also have a single horn
The Indian rhinoceros has a single horn
The black rhinoceros has a beak shaped lip and is similar in color to the white rhinoceros
The white rhinoceros is actually grey
Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) at the Saint Louis Zoo
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Infraclass:Eutheria
Order:Perissodactyla
Suborder:Ceratomorpha
Superfamily:Rhinocerotoidea
Family:Rhinocerotidae
Gray, 1820
Extant Genera
Ceratotherium
Dicerorhinus
Diceros
Rhinoceros
Extinct genera, see text
NEW DELHI: A total of 631 animals, including 19 rhinos, died in the recent floods in Kaziranga National Park of Assam, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.
In a written reply to the House, forest and environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan also said that flood is a natural and recurring phenomenon in Kaziranga and it creates a variety of habitats for different species.
"Mortality of wild animals due to flood has been reported during the year only in Kaziranga Tiger Reserve. As reported by the state, a total of 631 animal deaths, including 19 rhinos, have occurred in Kaziranga due to excess water brought by the flood during June-July 2012," she said.
She also informed the House that the flooding results in damage to infrastructure such as roads, anti-poaching camps, artificial high grounds.
"Similar high floods of 1988 and 1998 recorded animal mortality of 1203 and 652 respectively," Natarajan said.
Replying to a separate question on tiger deaths reported in Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, she said from 2008 till now, there are 19 such incidents of the big cats dying due to natural and other causes.
She said only two incidents of poaching were reported from the national park.
In reply to another question on Tiger Project, she said, "The country level tiger population, estimated once in every four years using the refined methodology, is 1706."
While the lower limit of the tiger population is estimated to be 1520, the upper limit has been fixed at 1909.
Providing details of the 'India State Survey of Forest Report 2011', Natarajan told the House that "Forest and tree cover in the country is 78.29 million hectare, which is 23.81 per cent of the total geographical cover. This includes 2.76 per cent of tree cover."
On the forest cover in hilly and tribal areas, she said, "In the hill and tribal districts of the country, a decrease in forest dover of 548 sq km and 679 sq km respectively has been reported as compared to the previous assessment."
The northeastern states account for one-fourth of the country's forest cover but, "A decline of 549 sq km in forest cover as compared to the previous assessment", she said.
Replying to a query on mangrove cover in the country, Natarajan said there has been an increase of 23.34 sq km during the same period.
More expensive than cocaine, rhino horn is now the party drug of choice among Vietnam’s young things.
Instead of a razor blade and mirror, a textured ceramic bowl is used for grinding down rhinoceros horn into a powder to be mixed with water or wine.
Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same protein as fingernails. Scientists say it has no medicinal value, and users aren’t getting high. The belief in Vietnam is that drinking a tonic made from the horn will detoxify the body after a night of heavy boozing, and prevent a hangover. One Vietnamese news website described rhino horn wine as “the alcoholic drink of millionaires.”
This is the latest twist in South Africa’s devastating rhino poaching crisis, which began with a sudden boom in illegal killings of the endangered animal in 2008 and has worsened every year since. Demand among the newly wealthy in Vietnam is the root of the problem, says TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring group.
Tom Milliken, a rhino expert with TRAFFIC, said that in Vietnam, offering your friends rhino horn at a party has become a fashionable way to show wealth and status.
The way it happens is like this: “I would get my closest friends and we’d go into another room. I would bring out some rhino horn and we’d all take it and then come back to the party,” said Milliken, who studied the phenomenon.
A new TRAFFIC report, co-authored by Milliken, details how surging demand for horn in Vietnam, corruption in South Africa’s wildlife industry, loopholes in regulations and criminal networks have all fed into the poaching epidemic.
Vietnam’s new rich have become the world’s largest consumer group of rhino horn, spurring demand and the continued slaughter of rhinos in South Africa.
Another key group of Vietnamese consumers is people with serious illnesses, in particular cancer, who believe rhino horn can cure them despite the lack of any medical evidence. The TRAFFIC report describes the phenomenon of “rhino horn touts” stalking the corridors at hospitals, seeking out desperate patients with cancer.
An update released by South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs said that 339 rhino have been killed illegally in the country since the start of 2012, on track to be the worst year for poaching yet. There have also been 192 poaching-related arrests this year.
South Africa is the primary target for poachers because it is home to 21,000 rhinos, or more than 80 per cent of the world population.
South Africa and Vietnam are beginning to cooperate on the problem, although progress has been slow.
Vietnam’s deputy foreign affairs minister Le Loung Minh visited South Africa last week for talks on illegal trade in wildlife with his counterpart Ebrahim Ebrahim. The two governments are set to sign a memorandum of understanding that would encompass cooperation in criminal investigations. But it has taken a year of sporadic talks to reach this point — a sign of the lack of urgent action.
“South Africa has progressively scaled up its response to rhino crime,” the report noted, pointing to a plan that is being implemented and the recent increase in “high-value arrests.”
South Africa’s environment ministry hired Mavuso Msimang to bring together South Africans in private and public sectors to find the best way to save the rhino.
The project involves studying the potential legalising of the rhino horn trade, a contentious issue. “The government has done a good job of putting their effort behind the saving of the rhino,” Msimang said at the launch of the TRAFFIC report. “It’s got shortcomings, coordination is not always great, but the will to do well is with us,” he said.
Every day in South Africa, a rhinoceros will bleed to death after its horn has been hacked off by poachers. The horns are sold on the black market in Asia, mostly in Vietnam, where they’re believed to have powerful medicinal properties. Dutch veterinarian Martine van Zijl Langhout works together with local wardens to try and protect this threatened species.
Van Zijll Langhout stalks as quietly as possible through the tall grass at Mauricedale Park in the east of South Africa near the famous Kruger Park. She pulls back the trigger on her special tranquiliser rifle, takes aim and fires. The rhinoceros in her sights wobbles groggily for a few minutes before sinking onto its knees and rolling unconscious onto its side. Van Zijll Langhout and her team, carrying a chainsaw, approach the animal cautiously.
Brutal killings
There are some 20,000 rhinos in South Africa, 80 percent of the world population. And every day these animals are slaughtered savagely by poachers. First the rhino is shot to bring it down, and then the horn is hacked off with axes and machetes. The poachers cut as deeply into the animal’s head as possible. Every extra centimetre of horn means more money in their pockets. In 2007, thirteen rhinos in South Africa fell victim to poachers. Last year that number had soared to 448, and the toll so far this year is 312.
Reducing risk
Loud snoring can be heard. The vet blindfolds the rhinoceros and then the park manager starts up the chainsaw and proceeds to slice into the beast’s horn. Van Zijll Langhout monitors its breathing: “This is one way to stop the poachers” she explains. “They want as much horn as possible so rhinos with a small horn are a less attractive target”.
Van Zijll Langhout came to South Africa in 1997 when she was still a student and worked at Kruger Park with lions, elephants and rhinos. She knew she’d found her dream job, and five years ago she returned as a qualified vet. “It’s an unquenchable passion, such an adventure, and every day is different,” she says, “It’s such a privilege to work with African animals and an honour to be able to do something for them”.
No better option
The preventive removal of the rhinoceros’ horn takes about ten minutes. Van Zijll Langhout, an energetic woman in her thirties with wildly curly hair, compares the process to clipping nails or having a haircut: “It’s completely painless; we cut above the blood vessels”. Again she checks the animal’s breathing as its snores echo through the bush. “It’s not nice that we have to do this, but I don’t really see a better option”, she sighs, “and the horn does grow back, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.” The fact that visitors to the park might be disappointed and expect to see rhinos complete with proud curving horns doesn’t bother her: “What matters is the animals’ survival”.
Organised crime
The fight against poaching is a difficult one. “These are professional criminals”, explains Van Zijll Langhout. “This isn’t about poor locals living in huts. Poachers have advanced weapons and sometimes even use helicopters.” The horns are worth more than their weight in gold, so it’s a lucrative trade for organised crime syndicates.
The horn falls to the ground; the team will preserve it and register it. The rhino is given an injection. Within minutes he’s back on his feet and walking off into the bush. His newly weightless head is no guarantee of safety though. A rhino was poached in the park the same week as the horns were sawn off. Even the stump that remains after the procedure is worth big money.
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
White rhinos live on Africa's grassy plains, where they sometimes gather in groups of as many as a dozen individuals. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Under the hot African sun, white rhinos take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
White rhinos have two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for this hard, hair-like growth, which is revered for medicinal use in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The white rhino once roamed much of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by these commercial uses. Only about 11,000 white rhinos survive in the wild, and many organizations are working to protect this much loved animal.Fast Facts
Type:
Mammal
Diet:
Herbivore
Size:
Head and body, 11 to 13.75 ft (3.4 to 4.2 m); tail, 20 to 27.5 in (50 to 70 cm)
Weight:
3,168 to 7,920 lbs (1,440 to 3,600 kg)
Protection status:
Endangered
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
Except for females and their offspring, black rhinos are solitary. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Black rhinos feed at night and during the gloaming hours of dawn and dusk. Under the hot African sun, they take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They often find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
Black rhinos boast two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet (one and a half meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has also been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for the hard, hairlike growth, which is revered for medicinal uses in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The black rhino once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by commercial demand.
The rifle shot boomed through the darkening forest just as Damien Mander arrived at his campfire after a long day training game ranger recruits in western Zimbabwe's Nakavango game reserve. His thoughts flew to Basta, a pregnant black rhinoceros, and her two-year-old calf. That afternoon one of his rangers had discovered human footprints following the pair's tracks as Basta sought cover in deep bush to deliver the newest member of her threatened species.
Damien, a hard-muscled former Australian Special Forces sniper with an imposing menagerie of tattoos, including "Seek & Destroy" in gothic lettering across his chest, swiveled his head, trying to place the direction of the shot. "There, near the eastern boundary," he pointed into the blackness. "Sounded like a .223," he said, identifying the position and caliber, a habit left over from 12 tours in Iraq. He and his rangers grabbed shotguns, radios, and medical kits and piled into two Land Cruisers. They roared into the night, hoping to cut off the shooter. The rangers rolled down their windows and listened for a second shot, which would likely signal Basta's calf was taken as well.
It was an ideal poacher's setup: half-moon, almost no wind. The human tracks were especially ominous. Poaching crews often pay trackers to find the rhinos, follow them until dusk, then radio their position to a shooter with a high-powered rifle. After the animal is down, the two horns on its snout are hacked off in minutes, and the massive carcass is left to hyenas and vultures. Nearly always the horns are fenced to an Asian buyer; an enterprising crew might also cut out Basta's fetus and the eyes of the mother and calf to sell to black magic or muti practitioners. If this gang was well organized, a group of heavily armed men would be covering the escape route, ready to ambush the rangers.
As the Land Cruiser bucked over rutted tracks, Damien did a quick calculation—between his vehicles he had two antiquated shotguns with about a dozen shells. Based on the sound of the shot, the poachers held an advantage in firepower. If the rangers did pick up a trail and followed on foot, they would have to contend with lions, leopards, and hyenas out hunting in the dark.
In the backseat of one of the speeding Land Cruisers, Benzene, a Zimbabwean ranger who had spent nearly a year watching over Basta and her calf and knew the pair intimately, loaded three shells into his shotgun, flicked on the safety, and chambered a round. As we bounced into the night, he said, "It is better for the poachers if they meet a lion than if they meet us."
AND SO GOES A NIGHT on the front lines of southern Africa's ruthless and murky rhino war, which since 2006 has seen more than a thousand rhinos slaughtered, some 22 poachers gunned down and more than 200 arrested last year in South Africa alone. At the bloody heart of this conflict is the rhino's horn, a prized ingredient in traditional Asian medicines. Though black market prices vary widely, as of last fall dealers in Vietnam quoted prices ranging from $33 to $133 a gram, which at the top end is double the price of gold and can exceed the price of cocaine.
Although the range of the two African species—the white rhino and its smaller cousin, the black rhino—has been reduced primarily to southern Africa and Kenya, their populations had shown encouraging improvement. In 2007 white rhinos numbered 17,470, while blacks had nearly doubled to 4,230 since the mid '90s.
For conservationists these numbers represented a triumph. In the 1970s and '80s, poaching had devastated the two species. Then China banned rhino horn from traditional medicine, and Yemen forbade its use for ceremonial dagger handles. All signs seemed to point to better days. But in 2008 the number of poached rhinos in South Africa shot up to 83, from just 13 in 2007. By 2010 the figure had soared to 333, followed by over 400 last year. Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, found most of the horn trade now leads to Vietnam, a shift that coincided with a swell of rumors that a high-ranking Vietnamese official used rhino horn to cure his cancer.
Meanwhile in South Africa, attracted by spiraling prices—and profits—crime syndicates began adding rhino poaching to their portfolios.
animals architecture art asia australia autumn baby band barcelona beach berlin bike bird birds birthday black blackandwhite blue bw california canada canon car cat chicago china christmas church city clouds color concert dance day de dog england europe fall family fashion festival film florida flower flowers food football france friends fun garden geotagged germany girl graffiti green halloween hawaii holiday house india instagramapp iphone iphoneography island italia italy japan kids la lake landscape light live london love macro me mexico model museum music nature new newyork newyorkcity night nikon nyc ocean old paris park party people photo photography photos portrait raw red river rock san sanfrancisco scotland sea seattle show sky snow spain spring square squareformat street summer sun sunset taiwan texas thailand tokyo travel tree trees trip uk unitedstates urban usa vacation vintage washington water wedding white winter woman yellow zoo
Nikon F3 Kodak ColorPlus ISO 200 1/250 Nikkor 50mm f/22
At the scanning software there is an option called "fading" clicked on "high" because it seem really dark (and that gave me those red tones), then adjusted the rgb leves, to make it brighter and don't mess with black tones, you get something like a digital color pushing ;D
En el software del escaner hay una opción llamada "deslavado" le di click en "alto" ya que se veia muy oscura (y eso me dio los tonos rojizos), después ajuste los niveles rgb, para hacerla más brillante sin echar a perder los tonos oscuros, se obtiene algo asi como un pushing digital a color ;D
I was able to sneak in a photo shoot last week while on the road for work. Brittney happened to have some free time to come out and shoot with me. The reflectors I got not to long ago have really come in handy and I'm kicking myself for not picking them up earlier. I setup a white reflector camera left for this shot.
Model: MM #1601019
Botswana, Moremi National Park, Moremi Game Reserve, Private Reserve, Farm, Chobe National park, Chobe Game Reserve, Zambia, Zambezi River, Livingstone, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Wildlife Conservation Project, Maramba River Lodge, South Africa, Krugger National Park, Okavango Delta, Kalahari region, Kalahari Desert.
Rhinoceros /raɪˈnɒsərəs/, often abbreviated as rhino, is a group of five extant species of knee-less, odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia.
Members of the rhinoceros family are characterized by their large size (they are some of the largest remaining megafauna, with all of the species able to reach one tonne or more in weight); as well as by a herbivorous diet; a thick protective skin, 1.5–5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure; relatively small brains for mammals this size (400–600 g); and a large horn. They generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter, if necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their powerful premolar and molar teeth to grind up plant food.[1]
Rhinoceros are killed by humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, and which are used by some cultures for ornamental or (pseudo-scientific) medicinal purposes. The horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails.[2] Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.
The IUCN Red List identifies three of the species as critically endangered.
The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek: ῥῑνόκερως, which is composed of ῥῑνο- (rhino-, "nose") and κέρας (keras, "horn"). The plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is crash or herd.
The five living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the Dicerotini group, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The species diverged during the early Pliocene (about 5 million years ago). The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths - white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage.
There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago. The Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (about 20 million years ago).[3] The extinct woolly rhinoceros of northern Europe and Asia was also a member of this tribe.
A subspecific hybrid white rhino (Ceratotherium s. simum × C. s. cottoni) was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo (Zoological Garden Dvur Kralove nad Labem) in the Czech Republic in 1977. Interspecific hybridisation of black and white rhinoceros has also been confirmed.[4]
While the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes (diploid number, 2N, per cell), all other rhinoceros species have 82 chromosomes.
White rhinoceros
Main article: White rhinoceros
There are two subspecies of white rhino: the southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) and the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni). In 2007, the southern subspecies had a wild population of 17,480 (IUCN2008) - 16,266 of which were in South Africa - making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world. However, the northern subspecies was critically endangered, with as few as four individuals in the wild; the possibility of complete extinction in the wild having been noted since June 2008.[5] Six are known to be held in captivity, two of which reside in a zoo in San Diego. Four born in a zoo in the Czech Republic were transferred to a wildlife refuge in Kenya in December 2009, in an effort to have the animals reproduce and save the subspecies.[6]
There is no conclusive explanation of the name white rhinoceros. A popular theory that "white" is a distortion of either the Afrikaans word weid or the Dutch word wijd (or its other possible spellings whyde, weit, etc.,) meaning wide and referring to the rhino's square lips is not supported by linguistic studies.[7][8]
The white rhino has an immense body and large head, a short neck and broad chest. This rhino can exceed 3,500 kg (7,700 lb), have a head-and-body length of 3.5–4.6 m (11–15 ft) and a shoulder height of 1.8–2 m (5.9–6.6 ft). The record-sized white rhinoceros was about 4,500 kg (10,000 lb).[9] On its snout it has two horns. The front horn is larger than the other horn and averages 90 cm (35 in) in length and can reach 150 cm (59 in). The white rhinoceros also has a prominent muscular hump that supports its relatively large head. The colour of this animal can range from yellowish brown to slate grey. Most of its body hair is found on the ear fringes and tail bristles, with the rest distributed rather sparsely over the rest of the body. White rhinos have the distinctive flat broad mouth that is used for grazing.
Black rhinoceros
Main article: Black rhinoceros
The name black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) was chosen to distinguish this species from the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). This can be confusing, as the two species are not really distinguishable by color. There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central (Diceros bicornis minor), the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa; South-western (Diceros bicornis bicornis) which are better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana and western South Africa; East African (Diceros bicornis michaeli), primarily in Tanzania; and West African (Diceros bicornis longipes) which was declared extinct in November 2011.[10] The native Tswanan name Keitloa is used to describe a South African variation of the black rhino in which the posterior horn is equal to or longer than the anterior horn.[11]
An adult black rhinoceros stands 150–175 cm (59–69 in) high at the shoulder and is 3.5–3.9 m (11–13 ft) in length.[12] An adult weighs from 850 to 1,600 kg (1,900 to 3,500 lb), exceptionally to 1,800 kg (4,000 lb), with the females being smaller than the males. Two horns on the skull are made of keratin with the larger front horn typically 50 cm long, exceptionally up to 140 cm. Sometimes, a third smaller horn may develop. The black rhino is much smaller than the white rhino, and has a pointed mouth, which it uses to grasp leaves and twigs when feeding.
During the latter half of the 20th century their numbers were severely reduced from an estimated 70,000[13] in the late 1960s to only 2,410 in 1995.[14]
Indian rhinoceros
Main article: Indian rhinoceros
The Indian rhinoceros, or the greater one-horned rhinoceros, (Rhinoceros unicornis) is now found almost exclusively in Nepal and North-Eastern India. The rhino once inhabited many areas ranging from Pakistan to Burma and may have even roamed in China. However, because of human influence, their range has shrunk and now they only exist in several protected areas of India (in Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat and a few pairs in Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal, plus a few pairs in Lal Suhanra National Park in Pakistan. It is confined to the tall grasslands and forests in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Indian rhinoceros has thick, silver-brown skin which creates huge folds all over its body. Its upper legs and shoulders are covered in wart-like bumps, and it has very little body hair. Fully grown males are larger than females in the wild, weighing from 2,500–3,200 kg (5,500–7,100 lb).The Indian rhino stands at 1.75–2.0 metres (5.75–6.5 ft). Female Indian rhinos weigh about 1,900 kg and are 3–4 metres long. The record-sized specimen of this rhino was approximately 3,800 kg. The Indian rhino has a single horn that reaches a length of between 20 and 100 cm. Its size is comparable to that of the white rhino in Africa.
Two-thirds of the world's Indian rhinoceroses are now confined to the Kaziranga National Park situated in the Golaghat district of Assam, India.[15]
Javan rhinoceros
Main article: Javan rhinoceros
The Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is one of the rarest and most endangered large mammals anywhere in the world.[16] According to 2002 estimates, only about 60 remain, in Java (Indonesia) and Vietnam. Of all the rhino species, the least is known of the Javan Rhino. These animals prefer dense lowland rain forest, tall grass and reed beds that are plentiful with large floodplains and mud wallows. Though once widespread throughout Asia, by the 1930s the rhinoceros was nearly hunted to extinction in India, Burma, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sumatra for the supposed medical powers of its horn and blood. As of 2009, there are only 40 of them remaining in Ujung Kulon Conservation, Java, Indonesia. The last rhinoceros in Vietnam was reportedly killed in 2010.[17]
Like the closely related, and larger, Indian rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros has a single horn. Its hairless, hazy gray skin falls into folds into the shoulder, back, and rump giving it an armored-like appearance. The Javan rhino's body length reaches up to 3.1–3.2 m (10–10 ft), including its head and a height of 1.5–1.7 m (4 ft 10 in–5 ft 7 in) tall. Adults are variously reported to weigh between 900–1,400 kg[18] or 1,360–2,000 kg.[19] Male horns can reach 26 cm in length, while in females they are knobs or are not present at all.[19]
Sumatran rhinoceros
Main article: Sumatran rhinoceros
The Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the smallest extant rhinoceros species, as well as the one with the most hair. It can be found at very high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra. Due to habitat loss and poaching, its numbers have declined and it is the most threatened rhinoceros. About 275 Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain.
A mature Sumatran rhino typically stands about 130 cm (51 in) high at the shoulder, with a body length of 240–315 cm (94–124 in) and weighing around 700 kg (1,500 lb), though the largest individuals have been known to weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms. Like the African species, it has two horns; the larger is the front (25–79 cm), with the smaller usually less than 10 cm long. The males have much larger horns than the females. Hair can range from dense (the densest hair in young calves) to scarce. The color of these rhinos is reddish brown. The body is short and has stubby legs. They also have a prehensile lip.
Rhinocerotoids diverged from other perissodactyls by the early Eocene. Fossils of Hyrachyus eximus found in North America date to this period. This small hornless ancestor resembled a tapir or small horse more than a rhino. Three families, sometimes grouped together as the superfamily Rhinocerotoidea, evolved in the late Eocene: Hyracodontidae, Amynodontidae and Rhinocerotidae.
Hyracodontidae, also known as 'running rhinos', showed adaptations for speed, and would have looked more like horses than modern rhinos. The smallest hyracodontids were dog-sized; the largest was Indricotherium, believed to be one of the largest land mammals that ever existed. The hornless Indricotherium was almost seven metres high, ten metres long, and weighed as much as 15 tons. Like a giraffe, it ate leaves from trees. The hyracodontids spread across Eurasia from the mid-Eocene to early Miocene.
The Amynodontidae, also known as "aquatic rhinos", dispersed across North America and Eurasia, from the late Eocene to early Oligocene. The amynodontids were hippopotamus-like in their ecology and appearance, inhabiting rivers and lakes, and sharing many of the same adaptations to aquatic life as hippos.
The family of all modern rhinoceros, the Rhinocerotidae, first appeared in the Late Eocene in Eurasia. The earliest members of Rhinocerotidae were small and numerous; at least 26 genera lived in Eurasia and North America until a wave of extinctions in the middle Oligocene wiped out most of the smaller species. However, several independent lineages survived. Menoceras, a pig-sized rhinoceros, had two horns side-by-side. The North American Teleoceras had short legs, a barrel chest and lived until about 5 million years ago. The last rhinos in the Americas became extinct during the Pliocene.
Modern rhinos are believed to have began dispersal from Asia during the Miocene. Two species survived the most recent period of glaciation and inhabited Europe as recently as 10,000 years ago: the woolly rhinoceros and Elasmotherium. The woolly rhinoceros appeared in China around 1 million years ago and first arrived in Europe around 600,000 years ago. It reappeared 200,000 years ago, alongside the woolly mammoth, and became numerous. Eventually it was hunted to extinction by early humans. Elasmotherium, also known as the giant rhinoceros, survived through the middle Pleistocene: it was two meters tall, five meters long and weighed around five tons, with a single enormous horn, hypsodont teeth and long legs for running.
Of the extant rhinoceros species, the Sumatran rhino is the most archaic, first emerging more than 15 million years ago. The Sumatran rhino was closely related to the woolly rhinoceros, but not to the other modern species. The Indian rhino and Javan rhino are closely related and form a more recent lineage of Asian rhino. The ancestors of early Indian and Javan rhino diverged 2–4 million years ago.[21]
The origin of the two living African rhinos can be traced back to the late Miocene (6 mya) species Ceratotherium neumayri. The lineages containing the living species diverged by the early Pliocene (1.5 mya), when Diceros praecox, the likely ancestor of the black rhinoceros, appears in the fossil record.[22] The black and white rhinoceros remain so closely related that they can still mate and successfully produce offspring.
In the wild, adult rhinoceros have few natural predators other than humans. Young rhinos can fall prey to predators such as big cats, crocodiles, wild dogs, and hyenas. Although rhinos are of a large size and have a reputation for being tough, they are actually very easily poached; because it visits water holes daily, the rhinoceros is easily killed while taking a drink. As of December 2009 poaching has been on a global increase whilst efforts to protect the rhinoceros are considered increasingly ineffective. The worst estimate, that only 3% of poachers are successfully countered, is reported of Zimbabwe. Rhino horn is considered to be particularly effective on fevers and even "life saving" by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, which in turn provides a sales market. Nepal is apparently alone in avoiding the crisis while poacher-hunters grow ever more sophisticated.[26] South African officials are calling for urgent action against rhinoceros poaching after poachers killed the last female rhinoceros in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve near Johannesburg.[27] Statistics from South African National Parks show a record 333 rhinoceros have been killed in 2010.[28]
Horns
Rhinoceros horns, unlike those of other horned mammals (which have a bony core), only consist of keratin. Rhinoceros horns are used in traditional Asian medicine, and for dagger handles in Yemen and Oman. Esmond Bradley Martin has reported on the trade for dagger handles in Yemen.[29]
One repeated misconception is that rhinoceros horn in powdered form is used as an aphrodisiac in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as Cornu Rhinoceri Asiatici It is, in fact, prescribed for fevers and convulsions.[30] Neither have been proven by evidence-based medicine. Discussions with TCM practitioners to reduce its use have met with mixed results since some TCM doctors see rhinoceros horn as a life-saving medicine of better quality than substitutes.[31] China has signed the CITES treaty however, and removed rhinoceros horn from the Chinese medicine pharmacopeia, administered by the Ministry of Health, in 1993. In 2011 in the United Kingdom, the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine issued a formal statement condemning the use of rhinoceros horn.[32] A growing number of TCM educators have also spoken out against the practice.[33] To prevent poaching, in certain areas, rhinos have been tranquilized and their horns removed. Armed park rangers, particularly in South Africa, are also working on the front lines to combat poaching, sometimes killing poachers who are caught in the act. A recent spike in rhino killings has made conservationaists concerned about the future of rhino species. During 2011 448 rhino were killed for their horn in South Africa alone.[34] The horn is incredibly valuable: an average sized horn can bring in much as a quarter of a million dollars in Vietnam and many rhino range States have stockpiles of rhino horn.[35][36] Still, poaching is hitting record levels due to demands from China and Vietnam.[37]
Historical representations
Albrecht Dürer created a famous woodcut of a rhinoceros in 1515, based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the animal itself and, as a result, Dürer's Rhinoceros is a somewhat inaccurate depiction.
There are legends about rhinoceros stamping out fire in Malaysia, India, and Burma. The mythical rhinoceros has a special name in Malay, badak api, where badak means rhinoceros and api means fire. The animal would come when a fire is lit in the forest and stamp it out.[38] There are no recent confirmations of this phenomenon. However, this legend has been reinforced by the film The Gods Must Be Crazy, where an African rhinoceros is shown to be putting out two campfires.
Conservation
International Rhino Foundation
Save the Rhino
Nicolaas Jan van Strien
Individual rhinoceroses
Abada
Clara
Rhinoceros of Versailles
See also: Fictional Rhinoceroses
Other
Rhinoceroses in ancient China
A wine vessel in the form of a bronze rhinoceros with silver inlay, from the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) period of China, sporting a saddle on its back
A rhinoceros depicted on a Roman mosaic in Villa Romana del Casale, an archeological site near Piazza Armerina in Sicily, Italy
Dürer's Rhinoceros, in a woodcut from 1515
Monk with rhinoceros horn. Samye, Tibet, 1938.
Indricotherium, the extinct "giant giraffe" rhinoceros. It stood 18 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed up to 20 tonnes (22 short tons).
Coelodonta, the extinct woolly rhinoceros
The thick dermal armour of the Rhinoceros evolved at the same time as shearing tusks[20]
The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest of the rhino species
Smaller in size than the Indian rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros also have a single horn
The Indian rhinoceros has a single horn
The black rhinoceros has a beak shaped lip and is similar in color to the white rhinoceros
The white rhinoceros is actually grey
Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) at the Saint Louis Zoo
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Infraclass:Eutheria
Order:Perissodactyla
Suborder:Ceratomorpha
Superfamily:Rhinocerotoidea
Family:Rhinocerotidae
Gray, 1820
Extant Genera
Ceratotherium
Dicerorhinus
Diceros
Rhinoceros
Extinct genera, see text
NEW DELHI: A total of 631 animals, including 19 rhinos, died in the recent floods in Kaziranga National Park of Assam, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.
In a written reply to the House, forest and environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan also said that flood is a natural and recurring phenomenon in Kaziranga and it creates a variety of habitats for different species.
"Mortality of wild animals due to flood has been reported during the year only in Kaziranga Tiger Reserve. As reported by the state, a total of 631 animal deaths, including 19 rhinos, have occurred in Kaziranga due to excess water brought by the flood during June-July 2012," she said.
She also informed the House that the flooding results in damage to infrastructure such as roads, anti-poaching camps, artificial high grounds.
"Similar high floods of 1988 and 1998 recorded animal mortality of 1203 and 652 respectively," Natarajan said.
Replying to a separate question on tiger deaths reported in Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, she said from 2008 till now, there are 19 such incidents of the big cats dying due to natural and other causes.
She said only two incidents of poaching were reported from the national park.
In reply to another question on Tiger Project, she said, "The country level tiger population, estimated once in every four years using the refined methodology, is 1706."
While the lower limit of the tiger population is estimated to be 1520, the upper limit has been fixed at 1909.
Providing details of the 'India State Survey of Forest Report 2011', Natarajan told the House that "Forest and tree cover in the country is 78.29 million hectare, which is 23.81 per cent of the total geographical cover. This includes 2.76 per cent of tree cover."
On the forest cover in hilly and tribal areas, she said, "In the hill and tribal districts of the country, a decrease in forest dover of 548 sq km and 679 sq km respectively has been reported as compared to the previous assessment."
The northeastern states account for one-fourth of the country's forest cover but, "A decline of 549 sq km in forest cover as compared to the previous assessment", she said.
Replying to a query on mangrove cover in the country, Natarajan said there has been an increase of 23.34 sq km during the same period.
More expensive than cocaine, rhino horn is now the party drug of choice among Vietnam’s young things.
Instead of a razor blade and mirror, a textured ceramic bowl is used for grinding down rhinoceros horn into a powder to be mixed with water or wine.
Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same protein as fingernails. Scientists say it has no medicinal value, and users aren’t getting high. The belief in Vietnam is that drinking a tonic made from the horn will detoxify the body after a night of heavy boozing, and prevent a hangover. One Vietnamese news website described rhino horn wine as “the alcoholic drink of millionaires.”
This is the latest twist in South Africa’s devastating rhino poaching crisis, which began with a sudden boom in illegal killings of the endangered animal in 2008 and has worsened every year since. Demand among the newly wealthy in Vietnam is the root of the problem, says TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring group.
Tom Milliken, a rhino expert with TRAFFIC, said that in Vietnam, offering your friends rhino horn at a party has become a fashionable way to show wealth and status.
The way it happens is like this: “I would get my closest friends and we’d go into another room. I would bring out some rhino horn and we’d all take it and then come back to the party,” said Milliken, who studied the phenomenon.
A new TRAFFIC report, co-authored by Milliken, details how surging demand for horn in Vietnam, corruption in South Africa’s wildlife industry, loopholes in regulations and criminal networks have all fed into the poaching epidemic.
Vietnam’s new rich have become the world’s largest consumer group of rhino horn, spurring demand and the continued slaughter of rhinos in South Africa.
Another key group of Vietnamese consumers is people with serious illnesses, in particular cancer, who believe rhino horn can cure them despite the lack of any medical evidence. The TRAFFIC report describes the phenomenon of “rhino horn touts” stalking the corridors at hospitals, seeking out desperate patients with cancer.
An update released by South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs said that 339 rhino have been killed illegally in the country since the start of 2012, on track to be the worst year for poaching yet. There have also been 192 poaching-related arrests this year.
South Africa is the primary target for poachers because it is home to 21,000 rhinos, or more than 80 per cent of the world population.
South Africa and Vietnam are beginning to cooperate on the problem, although progress has been slow.
Vietnam’s deputy foreign affairs minister Le Loung Minh visited South Africa last week for talks on illegal trade in wildlife with his counterpart Ebrahim Ebrahim. The two governments are set to sign a memorandum of understanding that would encompass cooperation in criminal investigations. But it has taken a year of sporadic talks to reach this point — a sign of the lack of urgent action.
“South Africa has progressively scaled up its response to rhino crime,” the report noted, pointing to a plan that is being implemented and the recent increase in “high-value arrests.”
South Africa’s environment ministry hired Mavuso Msimang to bring together South Africans in private and public sectors to find the best way to save the rhino.
The project involves studying the potential legalising of the rhino horn trade, a contentious issue. “The government has done a good job of putting their effort behind the saving of the rhino,” Msimang said at the launch of the TRAFFIC report. “It’s got shortcomings, coordination is not always great, but the will to do well is with us,” he said.
Every day in South Africa, a rhinoceros will bleed to death after its horn has been hacked off by poachers. The horns are sold on the black market in Asia, mostly in Vietnam, where they’re believed to have powerful medicinal properties. Dutch veterinarian Martine van Zijl Langhout works together with local wardens to try and protect this threatened species.
Van Zijll Langhout stalks as quietly as possible through the tall grass at Mauricedale Park in the east of South Africa near the famous Kruger Park. She pulls back the trigger on her special tranquiliser rifle, takes aim and fires. The rhinoceros in her sights wobbles groggily for a few minutes before sinking onto its knees and rolling unconscious onto its side. Van Zijll Langhout and her team, carrying a chainsaw, approach the animal cautiously.
Brutal killings
There are some 20,000 rhinos in South Africa, 80 percent of the world population. And every day these animals are slaughtered savagely by poachers. First the rhino is shot to bring it down, and then the horn is hacked off with axes and machetes. The poachers cut as deeply into the animal’s head as possible. Every extra centimetre of horn means more money in their pockets. In 2007, thirteen rhinos in South Africa fell victim to poachers. Last year that number had soared to 448, and the toll so far this year is 312.
Reducing risk
Loud snoring can be heard. The vet blindfolds the rhinoceros and then the park manager starts up the chainsaw and proceeds to slice into the beast’s horn. Van Zijll Langhout monitors its breathing: “This is one way to stop the poachers” she explains. “They want as much horn as possible so rhinos with a small horn are a less attractive target”.
Van Zijll Langhout came to South Africa in 1997 when she was still a student and worked at Kruger Park with lions, elephants and rhinos. She knew she’d found her dream job, and five years ago she returned as a qualified vet. “It’s an unquenchable passion, such an adventure, and every day is different,” she says, “It’s such a privilege to work with African animals and an honour to be able to do something for them”.
No better option
The preventive removal of the rhinoceros’ horn takes about ten minutes. Van Zijll Langhout, an energetic woman in her thirties with wildly curly hair, compares the process to clipping nails or having a haircut: “It’s completely painless; we cut above the blood vessels”. Again she checks the animal’s breathing as its snores echo through the bush. “It’s not nice that we have to do this, but I don’t really see a better option”, she sighs, “and the horn does grow back, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.” The fact that visitors to the park might be disappointed and expect to see rhinos complete with proud curving horns doesn’t bother her: “What matters is the animals’ survival”.
Organised crime
The fight against poaching is a difficult one. “These are professional criminals”, explains Van Zijll Langhout. “This isn’t about poor locals living in huts. Poachers have advanced weapons and sometimes even use helicopters.” The horns are worth more than their weight in gold, so it’s a lucrative trade for organised crime syndicates.
The horn falls to the ground; the team will preserve it and register it. The rhino is given an injection. Within minutes he’s back on his feet and walking off into the bush. His newly weightless head is no guarantee of safety though. A rhino was poached in the park the same week as the horns were sawn off. Even the stump that remains after the procedure is worth big money.
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
White rhinos live on Africa's grassy plains, where they sometimes gather in groups of as many as a dozen individuals. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Under the hot African sun, white rhinos take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
White rhinos have two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for this hard, hair-like growth, which is revered for medicinal use in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The white rhino once roamed much of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by these commercial uses. Only about 11,000 white rhinos survive in the wild, and many organizations are working to protect this much loved animal.Fast Facts
Type:
Mammal
Diet:
Herbivore
Size:
Head and body, 11 to 13.75 ft (3.4 to 4.2 m); tail, 20 to 27.5 in (50 to 70 cm)
Weight:
3,168 to 7,920 lbs (1,440 to 3,600 kg)
Protection status:
Endangered
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
Except for females and their offspring, black rhinos are solitary. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Black rhinos feed at night and during the gloaming hours of dawn and dusk. Under the hot African sun, they take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They often find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
Black rhinos boast two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet (one and a half meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has also been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for the hard, hairlike growth, which is revered for medicinal uses in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The black rhino once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by commercial demand.
The rifle shot boomed through the darkening forest just as Damien Mander arrived at his campfire after a long day training game ranger recruits in western Zimbabwe's Nakavango game reserve. His thoughts flew to Basta, a pregnant black rhinoceros, and her two-year-old calf. That afternoon one of his rangers had discovered human footprints following the pair's tracks as Basta sought cover in deep bush to deliver the newest member of her threatened species.
Damien, a hard-muscled former Australian Special Forces sniper with an imposing menagerie of tattoos, including "Seek & Destroy" in gothic lettering across his chest, swiveled his head, trying to place the direction of the shot. "There, near the eastern boundary," he pointed into the blackness. "Sounded like a .223," he said, identifying the position and caliber, a habit left over from 12 tours in Iraq. He and his rangers grabbed shotguns, radios, and medical kits and piled into two Land Cruisers. They roared into the night, hoping to cut off the shooter. The rangers rolled down their windows and listened for a second shot, which would likely signal Basta's calf was taken as well.
It was an ideal poacher's setup: half-moon, almost no wind. The human tracks were especially ominous. Poaching crews often pay trackers to find the rhinos, follow them until dusk, then radio their position to a shooter with a high-powered rifle. After the animal is down, the two horns on its snout are hacked off in minutes, and the massive carcass is left to hyenas and vultures. Nearly always the horns are fenced to an Asian buyer; an enterprising crew might also cut out Basta's fetus and the eyes of the mother and calf to sell to black magic or muti practitioners. If this gang was well organized, a group of heavily armed men would be covering the escape route, ready to ambush the rangers.
As the Land Cruiser bucked over rutted tracks, Damien did a quick calculation—between his vehicles he had two antiquated shotguns with about a dozen shells. Based on the sound of the shot, the poachers held an advantage in firepower. If the rangers did pick up a trail and followed on foot, they would have to contend with lions, leopards, and hyenas out hunting in the dark.
In the backseat of one of the speeding Land Cruisers, Benzene, a Zimbabwean ranger who had spent nearly a year watching over Basta and her calf and knew the pair intimately, loaded three shells into his shotgun, flicked on the safety, and chambered a round. As we bounced into the night, he said, "It is better for the poachers if they meet a lion than if they meet us."
AND SO GOES A NIGHT on the front lines of southern Africa's ruthless and murky rhino war, which since 2006 has seen more than a thousand rhinos slaughtered, some 22 poachers gunned down and more than 200 arrested last year in South Africa alone. At the bloody heart of this conflict is the rhino's horn, a prized ingredient in traditional Asian medicines. Though black market prices vary widely, as of last fall dealers in Vietnam quoted prices ranging from $33 to $133 a gram, which at the top end is double the price of gold and can exceed the price of cocaine.
Although the range of the two African species—the white rhino and its smaller cousin, the black rhino—has been reduced primarily to southern Africa and Kenya, their populations had shown encouraging improvement. In 2007 white rhinos numbered 17,470, while blacks had nearly doubled to 4,230 since the mid '90s.
For conservationists these numbers represented a triumph. In the 1970s and '80s, poaching had devastated the two species. Then China banned rhino horn from traditional medicine, and Yemen forbade its use for ceremonial dagger handles. All signs seemed to point to better days. But in 2008 the number of poached rhinos in South Africa shot up to 83, from just 13 in 2007. By 2010 the figure had soared to 333, followed by over 400 last year. Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, found most of the horn trade now leads to Vietnam, a shift that coincided with a swell of rumors that a high-ranking Vietnamese official used rhino horn to cure his cancer.
Meanwhile in South Africa, attracted by spiraling prices—and profits—crime syndicates began adding rhino poaching to their portfolios.
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Facts and Figures on Upland NERICA
•Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) scientists in association with their partners were able to successfully cross two species of cultivated rice—Oryza sativa (Asian rice) and O. glaberrima (African rice). This is a formidable scientific challenge because the two species have evolved separately over millennia and are so different that many previous attempts did not lead to reliable variety development. Using conventional and molecular biology techniques, the scientists overcame hybrid sterility—the main problem in crossing the species. This also allowed them to accelerate the breeding process from 5–7 years to 2 years or less. The fruit of this effort was the New Rice for Africa (NERICA), which presents several advantages over traditional varieties.
•NERICA is not just one variety; several hundred family lines have been generated. The development of NERICA varieties for various rice ecologies is a significant international public good.
•NERICA lines had been tested in 31 SSA countries. Farmers were exposed to NERICA varieties through the use of Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) and Community-Based Seed Systems (CBSS).
•During the period 2000–2006, AfricaRice designated 18 upland NERICA and 60 lowland NERICA-L varieties. More than 1.4 million ha are under upland NERICA production in Africa ((Arouna et al. 2017).
•NERICAs have brought specific benefits to African rice growers, in particular shorter growth duration and tolerance to specific biotic and abiotic stresses, while giving them yield that is generally as good as the high-yield potential O. sativa varieties.
•A study (Arouna et al. 2017) has shown that about 8 million people were lifted out of poverty and 7.2 million people out of food insecurity thanks to the adoption of improved rice varieties, including NERICA, which brought hope to millions of poor small-scale farmers in Africa by reducing poverty and income inequality. The impact of NERICA adoption on poverty reduction has been well documented in Benin and Uganda.
Upland NERICA Pedigree Names
NERICALINE CODEPARENTS
NERICA 1WAB 450-IBP-38-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 2WAB 450-1-1-P31-1-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 3WAB 450-IBP-28-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 4WAB 450-IBP-91-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 5WAB 450-11-1-1-P24-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 6WAB 450-IBP-160-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 7WAB 450-IBP-20-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 8WAB 450-1-BL1-136-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 9WAB 450-BL1-136-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 10WAB 450-11-1-1-P41-HBWAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 11WAB 450-16-2-BL2-DV1WAB 56-104 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-104
NERICA 12WAB 880-1-38-20-17-P1-HBWAB 56-50 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-50
NERICA 13WAB 880-1-38-20-28-P1-HBWAB 56-50 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-50
NERICA 14WAB 880-1-32-1-2-P1-HBWAB 56-50 / CG 14//2*WAB 56-50
NERICA 15WAB 881-10-37-18-3-P1-HBCG 14 / WAB 181-18//2*WAB 181-18
NERICA 16WAB 881-10-37-18-9-P1-HBCG 14 / WAB 181-18//2*WAB 181-18
NERICA 17WAB 881-10-37-18-13-P1-HBCG 14 / WAB 181-18//2*WAB 181-18
NERICA 18WAB 881-10-37-18-12-P3-HBCG 14 / WAB 181-18//2*WAB 181-18
*IBP: Interbreeding population, HB: High input homogeneous bulk, P: Panicle selection, BL: Blast, DV: Drought at vegetative phase.
For more information, visit www.AfricaRice.org
Photo : R.Raman, AfricaRice
So, I was able to convince a family member who was passing through Hong Kong to pick me up a Mark 42 from Secret Base, Hot Toys` flagship retial store, for MSRP of $1980 HKD.
I have to say, having played around with the figure, I`m actually pretty sold on the die cast concept.
The figures have greater than normal articulation compared to their plastic counterparts, thanks to the inclusion of some new joints.
Having seen the Mark 42 and Robocop first hand, it also seems that the quality of the finished product seems to be higher than that of their plastic cousins. Paint apps seem to be of better quality (or maybe better paint).
On the Iron Man figures, the various armour pieces appear to be thinner and fit together nicer, resulting a figure with more accurate proportions to the image on the screen.
The trade off is, of course, that these figures cost more, weigh more, and feature more ``handle with care`` play time.
The portrait of Robert Downey Jr. is light years ahead of that for the Mark VII.
My biggest gripe with this figure is that the quality of the finished battle damaged parts is inferior to that of the standard armour pieces. Gone is the glossy finish, colours on undamaged sections are muted, and the plastic feels to be of an inferior quality.
On the other hand, unlike the Mark 43, at least this figure HAS battle damage parts.
Other accessories include some additional hands (including the now standard articulated finger hands and the bent wrist hands) as well as a light up base that simulates on the of the Hall of Armour storage pods.
Botswana, Moremi National Park, Moremi Game Reserve, Private Reserve, Farm, Chobe National park, Chobe Game Reserve, Zambia, Zambezi River, Livingstone, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Wildlife Conservation Project, Maramba River Lodge, South Africa, Krugger National Park, Okavango Delta, Kalahari region, Kalahari Desert.
Rhinoceros /raɪˈnɒsərəs/, often abbreviated as rhino, is a group of five extant species of knee-less, odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia.
Members of the rhinoceros family are characterized by their large size (they are some of the largest remaining megafauna, with all of the species able to reach one tonne or more in weight); as well as by a herbivorous diet; a thick protective skin, 1.5–5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure; relatively small brains for mammals this size (400–600 g); and a large horn. They generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter, if necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their powerful premolar and molar teeth to grind up plant food.[1]
Rhinoceros are killed by humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, and which are used by some cultures for ornamental or (pseudo-scientific) medicinal purposes. The horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails.[2] Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.
The IUCN Red List identifies three of the species as critically endangered.
The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek: ῥῑνόκερως, which is composed of ῥῑνο- (rhino-, "nose") and κέρας (keras, "horn"). The plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is crash or herd.
The five living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the Dicerotini group, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The species diverged during the early Pliocene (about 5 million years ago). The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths - white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage.
There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago. The Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene (about 20 million years ago).[3] The extinct woolly rhinoceros of northern Europe and Asia was also a member of this tribe.
A subspecific hybrid white rhino (Ceratotherium s. simum × C. s. cottoni) was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo (Zoological Garden Dvur Kralove nad Labem) in the Czech Republic in 1977. Interspecific hybridisation of black and white rhinoceros has also been confirmed.[4]
While the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes (diploid number, 2N, per cell), all other rhinoceros species have 82 chromosomes.
White rhinoceros
Main article: White rhinoceros
There are two subspecies of white rhino: the southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) and the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni). In 2007, the southern subspecies had a wild population of 17,480 (IUCN2008) - 16,266 of which were in South Africa - making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world. However, the northern subspecies was critically endangered, with as few as four individuals in the wild; the possibility of complete extinction in the wild having been noted since June 2008.[5] Six are known to be held in captivity, two of which reside in a zoo in San Diego. Four born in a zoo in the Czech Republic were transferred to a wildlife refuge in Kenya in December 2009, in an effort to have the animals reproduce and save the subspecies.[6]
There is no conclusive explanation of the name white rhinoceros. A popular theory that "white" is a distortion of either the Afrikaans word weid or the Dutch word wijd (or its other possible spellings whyde, weit, etc.,) meaning wide and referring to the rhino's square lips is not supported by linguistic studies.[7][8]
The white rhino has an immense body and large head, a short neck and broad chest. This rhino can exceed 3,500 kg (7,700 lb), have a head-and-body length of 3.5–4.6 m (11–15 ft) and a shoulder height of 1.8–2 m (5.9–6.6 ft). The record-sized white rhinoceros was about 4,500 kg (10,000 lb).[9] On its snout it has two horns. The front horn is larger than the other horn and averages 90 cm (35 in) in length and can reach 150 cm (59 in). The white rhinoceros also has a prominent muscular hump that supports its relatively large head. The colour of this animal can range from yellowish brown to slate grey. Most of its body hair is found on the ear fringes and tail bristles, with the rest distributed rather sparsely over the rest of the body. White rhinos have the distinctive flat broad mouth that is used for grazing.
Black rhinoceros
Main article: Black rhinoceros
The name black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) was chosen to distinguish this species from the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). This can be confusing, as the two species are not really distinguishable by color. There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central (Diceros bicornis minor), the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa; South-western (Diceros bicornis bicornis) which are better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana and western South Africa; East African (Diceros bicornis michaeli), primarily in Tanzania; and West African (Diceros bicornis longipes) which was declared extinct in November 2011.[10] The native Tswanan name Keitloa is used to describe a South African variation of the black rhino in which the posterior horn is equal to or longer than the anterior horn.[11]
An adult black rhinoceros stands 150–175 cm (59–69 in) high at the shoulder and is 3.5–3.9 m (11–13 ft) in length.[12] An adult weighs from 850 to 1,600 kg (1,900 to 3,500 lb), exceptionally to 1,800 kg (4,000 lb), with the females being smaller than the males. Two horns on the skull are made of keratin with the larger front horn typically 50 cm long, exceptionally up to 140 cm. Sometimes, a third smaller horn may develop. The black rhino is much smaller than the white rhino, and has a pointed mouth, which it uses to grasp leaves and twigs when feeding.
During the latter half of the 20th century their numbers were severely reduced from an estimated 70,000[13] in the late 1960s to only 2,410 in 1995.[14]
Indian rhinoceros
Main article: Indian rhinoceros
The Indian rhinoceros, or the greater one-horned rhinoceros, (Rhinoceros unicornis) is now found almost exclusively in Nepal and North-Eastern India. The rhino once inhabited many areas ranging from Pakistan to Burma and may have even roamed in China. However, because of human influence, their range has shrunk and now they only exist in several protected areas of India (in Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat and a few pairs in Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal, plus a few pairs in Lal Suhanra National Park in Pakistan. It is confined to the tall grasslands and forests in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Indian rhinoceros has thick, silver-brown skin which creates huge folds all over its body. Its upper legs and shoulders are covered in wart-like bumps, and it has very little body hair. Fully grown males are larger than females in the wild, weighing from 2,500–3,200 kg (5,500–7,100 lb).The Indian rhino stands at 1.75–2.0 metres (5.75–6.5 ft). Female Indian rhinos weigh about 1,900 kg and are 3–4 metres long. The record-sized specimen of this rhino was approximately 3,800 kg. The Indian rhino has a single horn that reaches a length of between 20 and 100 cm. Its size is comparable to that of the white rhino in Africa.
Two-thirds of the world's Indian rhinoceroses are now confined to the Kaziranga National Park situated in the Golaghat district of Assam, India.[15]
Javan rhinoceros
Main article: Javan rhinoceros
The Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is one of the rarest and most endangered large mammals anywhere in the world.[16] According to 2002 estimates, only about 60 remain, in Java (Indonesia) and Vietnam. Of all the rhino species, the least is known of the Javan Rhino. These animals prefer dense lowland rain forest, tall grass and reed beds that are plentiful with large floodplains and mud wallows. Though once widespread throughout Asia, by the 1930s the rhinoceros was nearly hunted to extinction in India, Burma, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sumatra for the supposed medical powers of its horn and blood. As of 2009, there are only 40 of them remaining in Ujung Kulon Conservation, Java, Indonesia. The last rhinoceros in Vietnam was reportedly killed in 2010.[17]
Like the closely related, and larger, Indian rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros has a single horn. Its hairless, hazy gray skin falls into folds into the shoulder, back, and rump giving it an armored-like appearance. The Javan rhino's body length reaches up to 3.1–3.2 m (10–10 ft), including its head and a height of 1.5–1.7 m (4 ft 10 in–5 ft 7 in) tall. Adults are variously reported to weigh between 900–1,400 kg[18] or 1,360–2,000 kg.[19] Male horns can reach 26 cm in length, while in females they are knobs or are not present at all.[19]
Sumatran rhinoceros
Main article: Sumatran rhinoceros
The Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the smallest extant rhinoceros species, as well as the one with the most hair. It can be found at very high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra. Due to habitat loss and poaching, its numbers have declined and it is the most threatened rhinoceros. About 275 Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain.
A mature Sumatran rhino typically stands about 130 cm (51 in) high at the shoulder, with a body length of 240–315 cm (94–124 in) and weighing around 700 kg (1,500 lb), though the largest individuals have been known to weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms. Like the African species, it has two horns; the larger is the front (25–79 cm), with the smaller usually less than 10 cm long. The males have much larger horns than the females. Hair can range from dense (the densest hair in young calves) to scarce. The color of these rhinos is reddish brown. The body is short and has stubby legs. They also have a prehensile lip.
Rhinocerotoids diverged from other perissodactyls by the early Eocene. Fossils of Hyrachyus eximus found in North America date to this period. This small hornless ancestor resembled a tapir or small horse more than a rhino. Three families, sometimes grouped together as the superfamily Rhinocerotoidea, evolved in the late Eocene: Hyracodontidae, Amynodontidae and Rhinocerotidae.
Hyracodontidae, also known as 'running rhinos', showed adaptations for speed, and would have looked more like horses than modern rhinos. The smallest hyracodontids were dog-sized; the largest was Indricotherium, believed to be one of the largest land mammals that ever existed. The hornless Indricotherium was almost seven metres high, ten metres long, and weighed as much as 15 tons. Like a giraffe, it ate leaves from trees. The hyracodontids spread across Eurasia from the mid-Eocene to early Miocene.
The Amynodontidae, also known as "aquatic rhinos", dispersed across North America and Eurasia, from the late Eocene to early Oligocene. The amynodontids were hippopotamus-like in their ecology and appearance, inhabiting rivers and lakes, and sharing many of the same adaptations to aquatic life as hippos.
The family of all modern rhinoceros, the Rhinocerotidae, first appeared in the Late Eocene in Eurasia. The earliest members of Rhinocerotidae were small and numerous; at least 26 genera lived in Eurasia and North America until a wave of extinctions in the middle Oligocene wiped out most of the smaller species. However, several independent lineages survived. Menoceras, a pig-sized rhinoceros, had two horns side-by-side. The North American Teleoceras had short legs, a barrel chest and lived until about 5 million years ago. The last rhinos in the Americas became extinct during the Pliocene.
Modern rhinos are believed to have began dispersal from Asia during the Miocene. Two species survived the most recent period of glaciation and inhabited Europe as recently as 10,000 years ago: the woolly rhinoceros and Elasmotherium. The woolly rhinoceros appeared in China around 1 million years ago and first arrived in Europe around 600,000 years ago. It reappeared 200,000 years ago, alongside the woolly mammoth, and became numerous. Eventually it was hunted to extinction by early humans. Elasmotherium, also known as the giant rhinoceros, survived through the middle Pleistocene: it was two meters tall, five meters long and weighed around five tons, with a single enormous horn, hypsodont teeth and long legs for running.
Of the extant rhinoceros species, the Sumatran rhino is the most archaic, first emerging more than 15 million years ago. The Sumatran rhino was closely related to the woolly rhinoceros, but not to the other modern species. The Indian rhino and Javan rhino are closely related and form a more recent lineage of Asian rhino. The ancestors of early Indian and Javan rhino diverged 2–4 million years ago.[21]
The origin of the two living African rhinos can be traced back to the late Miocene (6 mya) species Ceratotherium neumayri. The lineages containing the living species diverged by the early Pliocene (1.5 mya), when Diceros praecox, the likely ancestor of the black rhinoceros, appears in the fossil record.[22] The black and white rhinoceros remain so closely related that they can still mate and successfully produce offspring.
In the wild, adult rhinoceros have few natural predators other than humans. Young rhinos can fall prey to predators such as big cats, crocodiles, wild dogs, and hyenas. Although rhinos are of a large size and have a reputation for being tough, they are actually very easily poached; because it visits water holes daily, the rhinoceros is easily killed while taking a drink. As of December 2009 poaching has been on a global increase whilst efforts to protect the rhinoceros are considered increasingly ineffective. The worst estimate, that only 3% of poachers are successfully countered, is reported of Zimbabwe. Rhino horn is considered to be particularly effective on fevers and even "life saving" by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, which in turn provides a sales market. Nepal is apparently alone in avoiding the crisis while poacher-hunters grow ever more sophisticated.[26] South African officials are calling for urgent action against rhinoceros poaching after poachers killed the last female rhinoceros in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve near Johannesburg.[27] Statistics from South African National Parks show a record 333 rhinoceros have been killed in 2010.[28]
Horns
Rhinoceros horns, unlike those of other horned mammals (which have a bony core), only consist of keratin. Rhinoceros horns are used in traditional Asian medicine, and for dagger handles in Yemen and Oman. Esmond Bradley Martin has reported on the trade for dagger handles in Yemen.[29]
One repeated misconception is that rhinoceros horn in powdered form is used as an aphrodisiac in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as Cornu Rhinoceri Asiatici It is, in fact, prescribed for fevers and convulsions.[30] Neither have been proven by evidence-based medicine. Discussions with TCM practitioners to reduce its use have met with mixed results since some TCM doctors see rhinoceros horn as a life-saving medicine of better quality than substitutes.[31] China has signed the CITES treaty however, and removed rhinoceros horn from the Chinese medicine pharmacopeia, administered by the Ministry of Health, in 1993. In 2011 in the United Kingdom, the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine issued a formal statement condemning the use of rhinoceros horn.[32] A growing number of TCM educators have also spoken out against the practice.[33] To prevent poaching, in certain areas, rhinos have been tranquilized and their horns removed. Armed park rangers, particularly in South Africa, are also working on the front lines to combat poaching, sometimes killing poachers who are caught in the act. A recent spike in rhino killings has made conservationaists concerned about the future of rhino species. During 2011 448 rhino were killed for their horn in South Africa alone.[34] The horn is incredibly valuable: an average sized horn can bring in much as a quarter of a million dollars in Vietnam and many rhino range States have stockpiles of rhino horn.[35][36] Still, poaching is hitting record levels due to demands from China and Vietnam.[37]
Historical representations
Albrecht Dürer created a famous woodcut of a rhinoceros in 1515, based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the animal itself and, as a result, Dürer's Rhinoceros is a somewhat inaccurate depiction.
There are legends about rhinoceros stamping out fire in Malaysia, India, and Burma. The mythical rhinoceros has a special name in Malay, badak api, where badak means rhinoceros and api means fire. The animal would come when a fire is lit in the forest and stamp it out.[38] There are no recent confirmations of this phenomenon. However, this legend has been reinforced by the film The Gods Must Be Crazy, where an African rhinoceros is shown to be putting out two campfires.
Conservation
International Rhino Foundation
Save the Rhino
Nicolaas Jan van Strien
Individual rhinoceroses
Abada
Clara
Rhinoceros of Versailles
See also: Fictional Rhinoceroses
Other
Rhinoceroses in ancient China
A wine vessel in the form of a bronze rhinoceros with silver inlay, from the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) period of China, sporting a saddle on its back
A rhinoceros depicted on a Roman mosaic in Villa Romana del Casale, an archeological site near Piazza Armerina in Sicily, Italy
Dürer's Rhinoceros, in a woodcut from 1515
Monk with rhinoceros horn. Samye, Tibet, 1938.
Indricotherium, the extinct "giant giraffe" rhinoceros. It stood 18 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed up to 20 tonnes (22 short tons).
Coelodonta, the extinct woolly rhinoceros
The thick dermal armour of the Rhinoceros evolved at the same time as shearing tusks[20]
The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest of the rhino species
Smaller in size than the Indian rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros also have a single horn
The Indian rhinoceros has a single horn
The black rhinoceros has a beak shaped lip and is similar in color to the white rhinoceros
The white rhinoceros is actually grey
Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) at the Saint Louis Zoo
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Infraclass:Eutheria
Order:Perissodactyla
Suborder:Ceratomorpha
Superfamily:Rhinocerotoidea
Family:Rhinocerotidae
Gray, 1820
Extant Genera
Ceratotherium
Dicerorhinus
Diceros
Rhinoceros
Extinct genera, see text
NEW DELHI: A total of 631 animals, including 19 rhinos, died in the recent floods in Kaziranga National Park of Assam, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.
In a written reply to the House, forest and environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan also said that flood is a natural and recurring phenomenon in Kaziranga and it creates a variety of habitats for different species.
"Mortality of wild animals due to flood has been reported during the year only in Kaziranga Tiger Reserve. As reported by the state, a total of 631 animal deaths, including 19 rhinos, have occurred in Kaziranga due to excess water brought by the flood during June-July 2012," she said.
She also informed the House that the flooding results in damage to infrastructure such as roads, anti-poaching camps, artificial high grounds.
"Similar high floods of 1988 and 1998 recorded animal mortality of 1203 and 652 respectively," Natarajan said.
Replying to a separate question on tiger deaths reported in Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, she said from 2008 till now, there are 19 such incidents of the big cats dying due to natural and other causes.
She said only two incidents of poaching were reported from the national park.
In reply to another question on Tiger Project, she said, "The country level tiger population, estimated once in every four years using the refined methodology, is 1706."
While the lower limit of the tiger population is estimated to be 1520, the upper limit has been fixed at 1909.
Providing details of the 'India State Survey of Forest Report 2011', Natarajan told the House that "Forest and tree cover in the country is 78.29 million hectare, which is 23.81 per cent of the total geographical cover. This includes 2.76 per cent of tree cover."
On the forest cover in hilly and tribal areas, she said, "In the hill and tribal districts of the country, a decrease in forest dover of 548 sq km and 679 sq km respectively has been reported as compared to the previous assessment."
The northeastern states account for one-fourth of the country's forest cover but, "A decline of 549 sq km in forest cover as compared to the previous assessment", she said.
Replying to a query on mangrove cover in the country, Natarajan said there has been an increase of 23.34 sq km during the same period.
More expensive than cocaine, rhino horn is now the party drug of choice among Vietnam’s young things.
Instead of a razor blade and mirror, a textured ceramic bowl is used for grinding down rhinoceros horn into a powder to be mixed with water or wine.
Rhino horn is made of keratin, the same protein as fingernails. Scientists say it has no medicinal value, and users aren’t getting high. The belief in Vietnam is that drinking a tonic made from the horn will detoxify the body after a night of heavy boozing, and prevent a hangover. One Vietnamese news website described rhino horn wine as “the alcoholic drink of millionaires.”
This is the latest twist in South Africa’s devastating rhino poaching crisis, which began with a sudden boom in illegal killings of the endangered animal in 2008 and has worsened every year since. Demand among the newly wealthy in Vietnam is the root of the problem, says TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring group.
Tom Milliken, a rhino expert with TRAFFIC, said that in Vietnam, offering your friends rhino horn at a party has become a fashionable way to show wealth and status.
The way it happens is like this: “I would get my closest friends and we’d go into another room. I would bring out some rhino horn and we’d all take it and then come back to the party,” said Milliken, who studied the phenomenon.
A new TRAFFIC report, co-authored by Milliken, details how surging demand for horn in Vietnam, corruption in South Africa’s wildlife industry, loopholes in regulations and criminal networks have all fed into the poaching epidemic.
Vietnam’s new rich have become the world’s largest consumer group of rhino horn, spurring demand and the continued slaughter of rhinos in South Africa.
Another key group of Vietnamese consumers is people with serious illnesses, in particular cancer, who believe rhino horn can cure them despite the lack of any medical evidence. The TRAFFIC report describes the phenomenon of “rhino horn touts” stalking the corridors at hospitals, seeking out desperate patients with cancer.
An update released by South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs said that 339 rhino have been killed illegally in the country since the start of 2012, on track to be the worst year for poaching yet. There have also been 192 poaching-related arrests this year.
South Africa is the primary target for poachers because it is home to 21,000 rhinos, or more than 80 per cent of the world population.
South Africa and Vietnam are beginning to cooperate on the problem, although progress has been slow.
Vietnam’s deputy foreign affairs minister Le Loung Minh visited South Africa last week for talks on illegal trade in wildlife with his counterpart Ebrahim Ebrahim. The two governments are set to sign a memorandum of understanding that would encompass cooperation in criminal investigations. But it has taken a year of sporadic talks to reach this point — a sign of the lack of urgent action.
“South Africa has progressively scaled up its response to rhino crime,” the report noted, pointing to a plan that is being implemented and the recent increase in “high-value arrests.”
South Africa’s environment ministry hired Mavuso Msimang to bring together South Africans in private and public sectors to find the best way to save the rhino.
The project involves studying the potential legalising of the rhino horn trade, a contentious issue. “The government has done a good job of putting their effort behind the saving of the rhino,” Msimang said at the launch of the TRAFFIC report. “It’s got shortcomings, coordination is not always great, but the will to do well is with us,” he said.
Every day in South Africa, a rhinoceros will bleed to death after its horn has been hacked off by poachers. The horns are sold on the black market in Asia, mostly in Vietnam, where they’re believed to have powerful medicinal properties. Dutch veterinarian Martine van Zijl Langhout works together with local wardens to try and protect this threatened species.
Van Zijll Langhout stalks as quietly as possible through the tall grass at Mauricedale Park in the east of South Africa near the famous Kruger Park. She pulls back the trigger on her special tranquiliser rifle, takes aim and fires. The rhinoceros in her sights wobbles groggily for a few minutes before sinking onto its knees and rolling unconscious onto its side. Van Zijll Langhout and her team, carrying a chainsaw, approach the animal cautiously.
Brutal killings
There are some 20,000 rhinos in South Africa, 80 percent of the world population. And every day these animals are slaughtered savagely by poachers. First the rhino is shot to bring it down, and then the horn is hacked off with axes and machetes. The poachers cut as deeply into the animal’s head as possible. Every extra centimetre of horn means more money in their pockets. In 2007, thirteen rhinos in South Africa fell victim to poachers. Last year that number had soared to 448, and the toll so far this year is 312.
Reducing risk
Loud snoring can be heard. The vet blindfolds the rhinoceros and then the park manager starts up the chainsaw and proceeds to slice into the beast’s horn. Van Zijll Langhout monitors its breathing: “This is one way to stop the poachers” she explains. “They want as much horn as possible so rhinos with a small horn are a less attractive target”.
Van Zijll Langhout came to South Africa in 1997 when she was still a student and worked at Kruger Park with lions, elephants and rhinos. She knew she’d found her dream job, and five years ago she returned as a qualified vet. “It’s an unquenchable passion, such an adventure, and every day is different,” she says, “It’s such a privilege to work with African animals and an honour to be able to do something for them”.
No better option
The preventive removal of the rhinoceros’ horn takes about ten minutes. Van Zijll Langhout, an energetic woman in her thirties with wildly curly hair, compares the process to clipping nails or having a haircut: “It’s completely painless; we cut above the blood vessels”. Again she checks the animal’s breathing as its snores echo through the bush. “It’s not nice that we have to do this, but I don’t really see a better option”, she sighs, “and the horn does grow back, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.” The fact that visitors to the park might be disappointed and expect to see rhinos complete with proud curving horns doesn’t bother her: “What matters is the animals’ survival”.
Organised crime
The fight against poaching is a difficult one. “These are professional criminals”, explains Van Zijll Langhout. “This isn’t about poor locals living in huts. Poachers have advanced weapons and sometimes even use helicopters.” The horns are worth more than their weight in gold, so it’s a lucrative trade for organised crime syndicates.
The horn falls to the ground; the team will preserve it and register it. The rhino is given an injection. Within minutes he’s back on his feet and walking off into the bush. His newly weightless head is no guarantee of safety though. A rhino was poached in the park the same week as the horns were sawn off. Even the stump that remains after the procedure is worth big money.
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
White rhinos live on Africa's grassy plains, where they sometimes gather in groups of as many as a dozen individuals. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Under the hot African sun, white rhinos take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
White rhinos have two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for this hard, hair-like growth, which is revered for medicinal use in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The white rhino once roamed much of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by these commercial uses. Only about 11,000 white rhinos survive in the wild, and many organizations are working to protect this much loved animal.Fast Facts
Type:
Mammal
Diet:
Herbivore
Size:
Head and body, 11 to 13.75 ft (3.4 to 4.2 m); tail, 20 to 27.5 in (50 to 70 cm)
Weight:
3,168 to 7,920 lbs (1,440 to 3,600 kg)
Protection status:
Endangered
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals' diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
Except for females and their offspring, black rhinos are solitary. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Black rhinos feed at night and during the gloaming hours of dawn and dusk. Under the hot African sun, they take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They often find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
Black rhinos boast two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet (one and a half meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has also been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for the hard, hairlike growth, which is revered for medicinal uses in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The black rhino once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by commercial demand.
The rifle shot boomed through the darkening forest just as Damien Mander arrived at his campfire after a long day training game ranger recruits in western Zimbabwe's Nakavango game reserve. His thoughts flew to Basta, a pregnant black rhinoceros, and her two-year-old calf. That afternoon one of his rangers had discovered human footprints following the pair's tracks as Basta sought cover in deep bush to deliver the newest member of her threatened species.
Damien, a hard-muscled former Australian Special Forces sniper with an imposing menagerie of tattoos, including "Seek & Destroy" in gothic lettering across his chest, swiveled his head, trying to place the direction of the shot. "There, near the eastern boundary," he pointed into the blackness. "Sounded like a .223," he said, identifying the position and caliber, a habit left over from 12 tours in Iraq. He and his rangers grabbed shotguns, radios, and medical kits and piled into two Land Cruisers. They roared into the night, hoping to cut off the shooter. The rangers rolled down their windows and listened for a second shot, which would likely signal Basta's calf was taken as well.
It was an ideal poacher's setup: half-moon, almost no wind. The human tracks were especially ominous. Poaching crews often pay trackers to find the rhinos, follow them until dusk, then radio their position to a shooter with a high-powered rifle. After the animal is down, the two horns on its snout are hacked off in minutes, and the massive carcass is left to hyenas and vultures. Nearly always the horns are fenced to an Asian buyer; an enterprising crew might also cut out Basta's fetus and the eyes of the mother and calf to sell to black magic or muti practitioners. If this gang was well organized, a group of heavily armed men would be covering the escape route, ready to ambush the rangers.
As the Land Cruiser bucked over rutted tracks, Damien did a quick calculation—between his vehicles he had two antiquated shotguns with about a dozen shells. Based on the sound of the shot, the poachers held an advantage in firepower. If the rangers did pick up a trail and followed on foot, they would have to contend with lions, leopards, and hyenas out hunting in the dark.
In the backseat of one of the speeding Land Cruisers, Benzene, a Zimbabwean ranger who had spent nearly a year watching over Basta and her calf and knew the pair intimately, loaded three shells into his shotgun, flicked on the safety, and chambered a round. As we bounced into the night, he said, "It is better for the poachers if they meet a lion than if they meet us."
AND SO GOES A NIGHT on the front lines of southern Africa's ruthless and murky rhino war, which since 2006 has seen more than a thousand rhinos slaughtered, some 22 poachers gunned down and more than 200 arrested last year in South Africa alone. At the bloody heart of this conflict is the rhino's horn, a prized ingredient in traditional Asian medicines. Though black market prices vary widely, as of last fall dealers in Vietnam quoted prices ranging from $33 to $133 a gram, which at the top end is double the price of gold and can exceed the price of cocaine.
Although the range of the two African species—the white rhino and its smaller cousin, the black rhino—has been reduced primarily to southern Africa and Kenya, their populations had shown encouraging improvement. In 2007 white rhinos numbered 17,470, while blacks had nearly doubled to 4,230 since the mid '90s.
For conservationists these numbers represented a triumph. In the 1970s and '80s, poaching had devastated the two species. Then China banned rhino horn from traditional medicine, and Yemen forbade its use for ceremonial dagger handles. All signs seemed to point to better days. But in 2008 the number of poached rhinos in South Africa shot up to 83, from just 13 in 2007. By 2010 the figure had soared to 333, followed by over 400 last year. Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, found most of the horn trade now leads to Vietnam, a shift that coincided with a swell of rumors that a high-ranking Vietnamese official used rhino horn to cure his cancer.
Meanwhile in South Africa, attracted by spiraling prices—and profits—crime syndicates began adding rhino poaching to their portfolios.
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I was able to make 10 bookmarks before OP from Kevin....I want to give it to all my Indonesian an German Friends who came in to my b´day party (that was 25 April 2009, because I dont know when I will have time again to make a little party :((...and that was already planned since 1 April......then Dr said.... I must bring Kevin to OP on 28 April.....3 days after my Bday Party) but I am happy can make this sets with only one HA Stamp.
Thats why for visiting HA Flickr I really have less time (cooking alone and preparing alone my little party :)) )....thats why I said I am so sorry to all ladies...
TFL :)
Ladder backed Woodpecker " female",
We had found this Cactus Skelton in the desert area below the Catalina Foothills.
Thinking it would make for a nice perch, We were able to get some Woodpeckers and other birds to utilize it on one of our setups!
Able to get a decent shot of the Neenah Foundry raw material area. Manhole covers start here. A gon of scrap sits at the far end. Two overhead cranes with magnetic discs pick the "recipe" of raw materials and deposit them in buckets that run up to the top of the furnace and dump. For awhile, thanks to a battle of corporate egos, Foundry was not receiving any scrap loads via gons. Apparently, a few beers in a board room made cooler heads prevail.
Tonight I was able to meet up with a client of mine, Paul Weishaar of PPW Motorcars and do a few shoots for his business. He sells a nice variety of automobiles and bikes, depending on what he finds out there to sell. Tonight I had 3 vehicles to shoot: A Jeep Grand Wagoneer, a Ford Expedition, and this particular example: a Moto Guzzi V7 Racer. I had heard of the company before but before I met Paul a year ago, had never seen an example of one of their bikes in person. This thing? It's just plain beautiful. It pays tribute to the cafe racers of yesteryear and looks incredible with the black, white, red, and chrome scheme. This screams 750cc's of Italian motorcycling pleasure. For sale soon!
p.s. I swear this isn't supposed to be an ad, but hey it's a neat bike!
Before Starting this Write up for the Days Events I want to say a Huge Thank You to all of the Marshals at Brands Hatch for the work that you do as without you We would not be able to Witness the Amazing Racing that takes Place Here Every Year.
During the Events of Saturday A Marshal Was Tragically Killed in an Accident on the Circuit. My Thoughts and Prayers are with The Family of the Marshal as well as Everyone Involved in the Incident.
Lets Keep Working Hard to Make Racing Exciting but also to work on the Safety Aspect of Both Spectators and Marshals at Each Event.
It was Time for the BARC To make a Very Special Return to Brands Hatch for the Annual BARC Club Car Championship Races. The Grids were looking to be Full up with lots of Action across both the Saturday and Sunday with Qualifying and Racing.
Lets See who's up First and Who can Take their Vehicles around the very Fast and Highly Paced Indy Circuit.
Brit Car Endurance Championship/Endurance And Praga Categories (Qualifying)
First Up was the Brit Car Endurance Championship Featuring a whole range of different cars from the Ferrari 488 to the Praga R1T. Thease two Classes of cars ran together during Qualifying so lets see who managed to take Pole Position for the Race on Sunday.
In First Place was (Tim Gray Motorsport and the Pairing of Richard Wells and Alex Kapadia) In their Praga R1T with a Lap Time of 44.675 and a Top Speed of 97.33mph. An Amazing Effort by Richard and Alex to claim Pole Position and start on the Front Row for Tomorrow's Race.
In Second Place was (CW Performance and the Pairing of Christopher Wesemael and Richard Morris) in their Praga R1 with a Lap Time of 45.128 and a Top Speed of 96.36mph. Another Incredible Drive from The Pairing of Christopher and Richard Claiming Second Position and Being Very Close to First in that Qualifying Battle. Fantastic Work.
In Third Place was (Team Praga Three Lions and The Pairing of Ash Dibden and Angus Fender) in their Praga R1 with a Lap Time of 45.365 and A Top Speed of 95.85mph. Very Close to Second Place Indeed with First, Second and Third place being a very hard Fought Battle for Positions. Fantastic work Ash and Angus.
A Very Exciting start to the Weekend with a Thrilling Qualifying Session and no doubt a Race to look forward to on the Sunday. Who will prevail and take the Checkered Flag? Only Time will tell.
CTCRC Edmundson Electrical Classic/Historic Thunder Saloons (Qualifying)
Next Up was the Edmundson Electrical Classics and The Historic Thunder Saloons as they Headed out for their Qualifying Session and with a Vast Grid of Historic Cars Such as Vauxhalls Fords and BMW'S this looks to be Another Spectacular Qualifying Session for the History Books.
Lets take a look and see who managed to get Pole Position and How Quickly they Managed to do it in.
In First Place was (Jason West) in his BMW E46 M3 3200 with a Lap Time of 50.576 and A Top Speed of 85.98mph. Very Fast Driving from Jason and a Fantastic Effort to achieve Pole Position for the Start of The Race.
In Second Place was (Mike Saunders) in his Ford MK1 Escort Mexico 4700 with a Lap Time of 51.100 and A Top Speed of 85.09mph. Another Fast and Well Controlled Lap from Mike to put himself into Second Place after a very Quick and Brave Drive.
In Third Place was (Andrew Wilson) in his Holden Monaro 7000 with a Lap Time of 51.282 and A Top Speed of 84.79mph. Fantastic Driving from Andrew to Achieve Third Place.
A Very Wonderful Qualifying Session for the CTCRC Edmundson Electrical Classic/Historic Thunder Saloons with Three Very Quick and Eager Drivers all wanting to be First but at the End of the Day their can only be One Winner. Who will it be? Only time will tell.
CTCRC JEC Saloon & GT Championship & Burton Power BOSS (Qualifying)
Next Up The Saloon and GT Championships and with More Escorts and Jaguars Heading onto the Circuit it was time to see what This set of Drivers could do and who would be able to claim Pole Position.
In First Place was (Malcom Harding) in his Ford Escort MK2 Zakspeed 2500 with a Lap Time of 53.705 and A Top Speed of 80.97mph. A Beautifully Prepared Machine Combined with a Fantastically Brave Drivers makes for a Perfect Paring. Amazing Work Malcom for Getting Pole Position.
In Second Place was (Steven Goldsmith) in his Ford Anglia 105e 2600 with a Lap Time of 54.237 and A Top Speed of 80.17mph. Another Amazing Driver pushing His Machinery Hard and Coming Very Close to Malcom's Time. Amazing Work Steven.
In Third Place was (Colin Philpott) in his Jaguar XJS 4000 with a Lap Time of 55.165 and A Top Speed of 79.27mph. Still Keeping very Close to Steven in Second Place and Rightfully Defending that Third Spot on the Grid. Amazing Drive from Colin.
Another Set of Amazing Drivers all showing the Love and Passion they have For Motorsport and Racing. But who will be Brave enough to push to the limits and Defend their Position for the Race. We will Have to Wait and Find Out.
CTCRC JEC Saloon & GT Championship & Burton Power BOSS (Race 1)
Its Time for The First Race of the Day and its for the JEC Saloons and GT Championship. After a Thrilling Qualifying Session Earlier its time to see who can Take Victory in the First Race.
In First Place and Taking the First Win of the Weekend was (MALCOLM HARDING) in his Ford Escort MK2 Zakspeed 2500 with a Lap Time of 54.028 and a Top Speed of 80.48mph. Amazing Drive There Malcolm and Congratulations on Your First Victory.
In Second Place was (STEVEN GOLDSMITH) in his Ford Anglia 105e 2600 with a Lap Time of 54.645 and A Top Speed of 79.57mph. Incredible Drive there Steve with a lot of Determination and a Very Brave Nerve to take Second Place.
In Third Place was (COLIN PHILPOT) in his Jaguar XJS 4000 with a Lap Time of 55.295 and a Top Speed of 78.64mph. Well Done Colin A Well Deserved Third Place and an Amazing Drive for Third Place.
What A Race from the Saloon and GT Championship and with Another Race to Come on Sunday More High Speed Action can be expected then.
CTCRC Laser Tools Pre 93 & Simply Serviced Pre 03 Touring Cars (Qualifying)
Next Up onto the Circuit was the Pre 03 and Pre 93 Touring Cars for their Qualifying Session and with some Fantastic Cars on the Gird it will be Interesting to see who Can take Pole Position and become the Victor of this Qualifying Session.
In First Place was (Gary Prebble) in his Honda Civic EG 2000 with a Lap Time of 52.971 and A Top Speed of 82.09mph. Fast and Committed rom Gary and a Beautifully Prepared Honda too. Well Done.
In Second Place was (AJ Owen) in his Honda Civic Type R 2000 with a Lap Time of 53.153 and A Top Speed of 81.81mph. Another Fantastic Drive from AJ Showing the Power of the Honda Engine and what it can do in the right hands.
In Third Place was (Don Hughes) in his Peugeot 306 XSI 2000 with a Lap Time of 54.013 and A Top Speed of 80.51mph. Another Super Lap from a Super Driver to Put himself into Third Place Behind the Two Hondas Awesome Work there Don.
A Brilliant Qualifying Session for the Pre 93 and Pre 03 Touring Cars. Well Done to the Top Three Drivers and Good Luck to all other Drivers Competing.
CTCRC Poultec Classic Race Engines Pre 66 Touring Cars (Qualifying)
Pre 66 Touring Cars are Next Up and usually a Fan Favourite at Brands Hatch Amongst Spectators and Race Enthusiasts and Who Can blame them. From the Mini Cooper S to The Ford Anglia and Lotus Cortina they are truly something Special to witness Racing around the Track.
Lets See who came where and how this will Impact the Race Ahead.
In First Place was (Alan Greenhalgh) in his Ford Falcon 4727 with a Lap Time of 58.396 and a Top Speed of 74.46mph. Fantastic Driving Alan and a well Deserved Pole Position.
In Second Place was (Robyn Slater) in his Ford Anglia 1550 with a Lap Time of 59.353 and A Top Speed of 73.26mph. Very Well Done to Robyn and an Amazing Drive to Achieve Second Place.
In Third Place was (Barry Sime) in his Morris Mini Cooper S with A Lap Time of 59.627 and A Top Speed of 72.93mph. Showing the Power of The Mini there Barry that's for sure What an Awesome Drive for Third Place.
What A Qualifying Session for the Pre 66 Touring Cars Showing some Awesome Machinery and Cars that Have Been Designed for One Thing Speed. Well Done to Alan Robyn and Barry Here's Hoping to see a Fantastic Battle Between all Three of you Come Race Day.
CTCRC Shell Oils Pre 83 Touring Cars (Qualifying)
Finally was the Turn of the Shell Oils Pre 83 Touring Cars to take to the Circuit. With More Fords and Jags ready to take on the Track and see who can take that Final Pole Position of The Day.
Lets see how things Turned out on the Track
In First Place was (Mike Luck) in his BMW E21 320 with a Lap Time of 56.575 and a Top Speed of 76.86mph. A Very Fast Time and enough to take Pole Position Amazing work there Mike.
In Second Place was (Mark Osbourne) in his Triumph Dolomite Sprint 1998 with a Lap Time of 56.839 and A Top Speed of 76.5mph. Amazing Drive from Mark to put his Triumph right up there in Second Place and not too far Behind Mike in the BMW.
In Third Place was (Stephen Primett) in his Ford Escort MK1 2037 with a Lap Time of 56.867mph and a Top Speed of 76.46mph. Another Incredible Drive for Third Place and The Final Spot in the Top Three for Qualifying. Very Well Done Stephen.
A Thrilling Qualifying Session for the Pre 83 Touring Cars to round of a Very Busy and Long First Day of Qualifying. Lets see what Each Driver can do come Race Day and who will be able to Dominate and Take Home The Trophy for Their Classes.
Best Luck To Everybody and See You All Tomorrow.
Day 2 of Mini Festival at Brands Hatch and after a Superb Day of Both Racing and High Speed Action on the Saturday Sunday Was Promising to be a lot of the Same but with even more Racing to Look forward too.
With 2 Races for both Miglia class and Dunlop Mini Sevens as well as Formula 3 The Days events were already shaping up to be One for The History Books with Multiple Fierce and Competitive Drivers from Saturday Looking to Improve and Win their Respective Classes.
Lets take a Look at what Will be Racing Today and see which of the Drivers can Push Hard and Aim for a Win in their Respective Class.
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Miglia (Race 9 Results)
First up onto the Track was The Dunlop Mini Miglia Challenge and after a Very Intense Qualifying Battle Yesterday (Aron Smith) Took the Pole with (Andrew Jordan) Second and (James Cuthbertson) in Third Place. Will all Three Men be able to Keep their Positions come the Race or will they start to fall down the order once Racing Gets Underway. Lets find out.
In First Place was (Endaf Owens) in his Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.221 and a Top Speed of 78.76mph. Fantastic Drive there Endaf who was Definitely not Afraid to get that Miglia Sideways as he Raced his Way through the Field to take a Dominant Victory.
In Second Place was (Andrew Jordan) In His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.498 and a Top Speed of 78.64mph. Amazing Driving from Andrew Showing what a Fantastic Mini Racer he is as well as a Superb BTCC Driver as well using his Skills Learned from his BTCC Racing to Hold on for Second Place.
In Third Place was (Aaron Smith) in His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.449 and a Top Speed Of 78.63mph. Awesome Work there Aaron Putting on an Incredible Display Of Driving Commitment and Skill to Keep 3rd Place and Take the Final Podium Spot.
What a Start to the Days Racing with Three Top Drivers Battling out for a Victory and Showing what they can do when it comes to Competitive Miglia Racing. What New Challenges will be Seen in Race 2 as each Drivers Gets Ready to do Battle once again and this Time who will be the one to Claim that All Important Victory.
Lets Find out
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Miglia (Race 17 Results)
In First Place was (Endaf Owens) In His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.862 and A Top Speed of 54.862mph. Very Fast and Quick Racing from Endaf who was Pushing as Hard as he Could to keep the Gap wide Open and ensure a Victory. Amazing Driving
In Second Place was (Aaron Smith) in His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.773 and a Top Speed of 75.23mph. Fantastic Drive there Aron Really Great Work and taking Second Place away from the Previous Second Place Winner (Andrew Jordan)
In Third Place was (Andrew Jordan) in His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.913 and a Top Speed of 75.21mph. Another Storming Drive from Andrew to take Third Place this Time Well Done.
What Another Amazing Race will all three Top Drivers Pushing their Miglia's Hard and all wanting to achieve that 1st Place Finish. To all other Drivers out there Good Luck and Keep Pushing Yourselves to Work Harder and you will Achieve what it is that you so Desire.
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Se7en (Race 13 Results)
Dunlop Mini Sevens were next up onto the Circuit and with Cars that all Have a Very Colourful set of Liveries and Drivers Ready to go this Next Race was going to be One that would be a Fantastic Watch from either Paddock Hill or The Main Straight as the Minis would be Blasting Past at Nearly 75mph.
Previously Yesterday During Qualifying it was (Jeff Smith) who took the Pole with (Nick Fowler) in Second Place and (Spencer Wanstall) in Third Place with all Three Drivers being Separated by Less than Half a Second as they Crossed the Line to Finish Qualifying.
With Three Very Experienced Drivers at the Front and a Whole Grid of other Great Drivers Ready Lets see what Results this Race will bring.
In First Place was (Jeff Smith) in his Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 59.566 and a Top Speed of 72.29mph. Amazing work Jeff Pushing that Little Mini Seven to its Limits and taking First Place.
In Second Place was (Jonathan Lewis) in his Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 59.197 and a Top Speed of 71.91mph. Another Incredible Drive from Jonathan Keeping Hold of Second Place and taking Home the Spoils from the First Race.
In Third Place was (Nick Fowler) in his Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 59.688 and a Top Speed of 71.83mph. Fantastic Drive there Nick Racing Hard and Managing to Hold onto Third Place on the Podium Well Done.
Mini Racing is Really Turning out to be Very Exciting and Fantastic This Year with so Many Different Winners and Other Drivers working Hard to Keep their Cars is Running and Race Ready condition. A Big Congratulations to Jeff Jonathan and Nick for showing some Seriously Impressive Racing and to all other Drivers Taking Part and enjoying what They Love.
Lets Dive into Race 2 and See who Might make a Leap to 1st Second or Third and who will be able to challenge the Top Three Drivers.
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Se7en (Race 19 Results)
Race 2 Up Next and things were not going as Smoothly as Most Drivers would Have Wanted as they all Gripped their Steering wheels and Prepared for Battle The Heavens Opened and a Large Rain Shower Engulfed the Track and with already Dark Conditions now getting even Darker it was only a matter of Time before Visibility would be Very Difficult.
Who has the Nerve to Push Hard and Take The Victory and who will be Brave Enough to take Second and Third Place? Lets Find out
In First Place was (Joe Thompson) in His Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 1:06.615 and a Top Speed of 60.38mph. Extremely Well Driven there Joe Pushing Hard but keeping the Mini Under Control in Very Damp and Dark Conditions to take a Superb Victory.
In Second Place was (Mike Jordan) in His Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 1:06.801 and a Top Speed of 60.33mph. Amazing Drive there Mike Well Deserved and Driven too.
In Third Place was (Spencer Wanstall) in His Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 1:05.178 and a Top Speed of 60.32mph. Incredible Bravery from Spencer and to Keep that Car on the Track Must Have Taken some Incredible Skill thought the Entire Race.
What a Fantastic Finish to the Mini Sevens Racing Today at Brands Hatch with Multiple Different Winners on the Podium and Some Very Changeable Conditions it made for some Remarkable Racing and Brilliant Overtakes thought.
Congratulations to Joe Mike and Spencer on their Podium Places and Well Done to all Other Mini Seven Drivers for Braving the Conditions to put on a Race that Shows What the British Spirit of Racing is all About. Alex Issigonis would be Proud.
Formula 3 Cup (Race 12 Results)
Formula 3 up Next and with the Track being Mostly Dry before the Start of This Race Each Drivers was Ready to Push Hard and try to take the Victory from the other. Qualifying Yesterday Proved that even a Smaller Grid can still Make for some Intense Racing with Drivers such as (George Line) (Robbie Watts) and (Shane Kelly) showing some Incredible Speed and Capable Car Control thought the Entire Qualifying Session.
With Lots of Aero and a Very Fast set of Dallara F308 Engines Powering them Lets See what the Formula 3's Get up to.
In First Place was (George Line) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Lap Time of 43.825 and a Top Speed of 96.55mph. Incredible Speed and Confidence shown from George behind the wheel of that Formula 3 showing that he was Almost Fearless and in a League of his own. Incredible Driving.
In Second Place was (Robbie Watts) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Lap Time of 43.926 and a Top Speed of 96.39mph. Another Super Driver in Robbie Pushing Hard and Defending Second Place thought the Entire Race and Keeping George Busy on his Toes Most of the Time.
In Third Place was (Shane Kelly) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Lap Time of 44.071 and a Top Speed of 95.88mph. Very Well Done there Shane Racing Hard and Keeping up the Pace with Both Robbie and George in Second and First.
What an Exciting First Race for the Formula 3 Drivers who are all Showing that they All Have the Nerve and Skill to Race Hard and Push where it matters. Congratulations to Stefano George and Dominic and Good Luck to All other F3 Drivers out there for Race 2 Coming up Next.
Formula 3 Cup (Race 21 Results)
With Race 2 About to Start all of the Drivers took off for their Formation Lap and Plenty of Water and Spray was seen Shooting up from the Back of Each Car and Having had the First Race take Place in Dry Conditions thease New Track Conditions would be Very Different for Each Driver and Driving Ability is a Must for Survival Out there. With the 5 Red Lights illuminated the Race Began but who would Finish and take Home The Victory. Lets Find Out
In First Place was (Stefano Leaney) in his F3 Dallara F317 with a Best Lap Time of 50.532 and a Top Speed of 84.71mph. Stefano is Really Proving to be a worthy Drivers to Drive in Formula 3 as Once Again his Sheeree Bravery and Fearless Nature was on Display once again in Conditions that Most other Divers would have thought Twice about Pushing their Machinery to Hard in. Congratulations Stefano.
In Second Place was (George Line) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Best Lap Time of 52.738 and a Top Speed of 81.07mph. Fantastic Work there George Once Again Demonstraighting how to Race an F3 In Wet Conditions with Beautiful Lines taken thought the Corse of the Race and a Well Deserved Second Place.
In Third Place was (Shane Kelly) in his Dallara F308 with a Best Lap Time of 52.771 and a Too Speed of 80.96mph Another Very Brave and Quick Driver in Wet Conditions with Shane Really Defending Hard and Fast in order to Keep hold of that Well Deserved Third Place.
What an Astonishing Race with Winners in Stefano George and Shane all taking spots on the Podium and Hopefully One Day Having their Chance in Formula 1. Each Driver put on a Super Display of Driving Skill and Keeping their Cars at High Speed on a Wet Track is no Easy Feat. Well Done to all the Other Formula 3 Drivers too Keep Pushing Hard and Making sure you do Everything you Can To One Day Achieve That Victory.
Fastest Mini in the World (Race 11 Results)
Fastest Mini In The World was Up Next and this Racing Series Features Many Familiar Looking Minis and yet Each one has a trick up its Sleeve and that is that their Standard 1275gt Engines have all been Replaced with Engines from Cars that have Considerably more Horse Power. The Goal of the Race is to not Just Win but to also Prove to Everyone that You Have The Fastest Mini in the World.
With Qualifying Yesterday showing Very Quick Pace from (Bill Richards) in his Maguire Club Estate it was clear to see that The Drivers and their cars were in a completely different League to all other Racing Minis there that Weekend. Lets Find out who came First in the First Race and who took the First Title of Fastest Mini in the World.
In First Place was (Harvey Death) in his Austin Mini Cooper S V8 with a Best Lap Time of 51.294 and a Top Speed of 82.01mph. Fantastic Driving from Harvey to Push his V8 Mini to the Limit and take Home First Place and the Top Step on the Podium.
In Second Place was (Bill Richards) in his Maguire Clubman Estate with a Best Lap Time of 53.391 and a Top Speed of 80.15mph. Epic Drive there from Bill Pushing Hard and making sure to Keep Harvey Behind Him.
In Third Place was (Richard Billingham) in his Austin Mini Clubman with a Best Lap Time of 53.347 and a Top Speed of 79.91mph. Very Well Driven there Richard showing the Insane Horse Power thease Mini's have and how they Accelerate and Decelerate much Faster than a Standard Cooper S or even a Racing Mini Seven.
What an Epic Race and Display of Incredible Driving and Battling for the Victory of Fastest Mini in the World. Each Driver Held their Nerve and Push Very Hard Indeed which was Fantastic to see. Congratulations to our Race Winners Harvey Bill and Richard. Lets see what Luck Race 2 Brings.
Fastest Mini in the World (Race 16 Results)
In First Place was (Harvey Death) in his Austin Mini Cooper S V8 with a Best Lap Time of 52.256 and a Top Speed of 79.02mph. Another Fantastic Victory for Harvey who has proven to Have The Fastest Mini in the World and is Really Capable of Driving it as well. Congratulations
In Second Place was (Fabio Luffarelli) in his Mini Classic Saloon with a Best Lap Time of 55.949 and a Top Speed of 76.21mph. Amazing work there Fabio Fantastic to see such an Iconic Mini Out there but with a Twist by putting a Far more Powerful Engine under the hood to Have even more Fun with it. Amazing Build and Super Drive.
In Third Place was (Matthew Skidmore) in his Austin Mini with a Best Lap Time of 55.257 and a Top Speed of 75.71mph. Brilliant Drive Matthew Showing the Real Power and Driver Ability of a car Pushing right onto the limits all the Time.
What an Incredible Days Racing for the Fastest Mini in the World Showcasing Many Classic Favourites that Everyone Loves but with some surprises under each Bonnet. Congratulations to Harvey Fabio and Matthew for their Incredible Victories and Good Luck to all other Teams in the Series.
Mighty Minis & Super Mighty Mini Championship (Race 10 Results)
Mighty Mini's and Super Mighty Mini's were up Next and with a Massive Grid of Both Mighty and Super Mighty Mini's on Display This was going to be another Race that would be well worth the Watch.
From Qualifying Yesterday (Bobby Thompson) took the Pole setting a Very Fast Time of Just 1:00.205 Round the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit with (Ian Slark) and (Stuart Coombs) following Closely Behind in both Second and Third.
With So Many Different Drivers on the Grid and Plenty of Traffic to Navigate Through this First Race was going to be an Epic One to Witness.
In First Place was (Bobby Thompson) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.331 and a Top Speed of 61.14mph. Fantastic Work Bobby Racing at High Speeds and Pushing that Mini around the Circuit in Record Time. Congratulations
In Second Place was (Ian Slark) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.319 and a Top Speed of 61.13mph. Amazing Driving Ian Top Driver and a Fantastic Mini Racer
In Third Place was (Neven Kirkpatrick) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.426 and a Top Speed of 61.07mph. Well Done Neven a Really Well crafted Drive and a truly deserved Third Place.
What a Start to an Amazing Race with so many different Mini's taking to the track and Pushing hard keeping the top Three on their Toes the Entire Time due to How evenly matched each Mini is. Congratulations to Bobby Ian and Neven and See You all in the Final Race.
Mighty Minis & Super Mighty Mini Championship (Race 18 Results)
The Last Race of the Day for the Mighty and Super Mighty Mini's Championship and with a Very Tight Battle at the Top Between Bobby Ian and Neven which one of them will be able to take Home Victory for the Last Time today. Lets Get straight to finding out.
In First Place was (Neven Kirkpatrick) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.029 and a Top Speed of 70.35mph. Phenomenal Drive Neven Fending off Ian in Second Place and Keeping yourself up Front to Win and a Fantastic Way to End the Day with a Victory
In Second Place was (Ian Slark) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.756 and a Top Speed of 70.34mph. Another Brilliant Drive by Regular Ian Slark with Tremendous Car Control and Ability he Really is an Incredible Driver.
In Third Place was (David Kirkpatrick) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.991 and a Top Speed of 70.23mph. Amazing Work David Driving Hard and so Great to see Neven up there In First Place, Always Something to be Proud of.
And So that Ends the Days Racing for The Super Mighty Mini's and Mighty Mini's Racing, A Big Congratulations to Neven Ian and David on their Race Wins and also a Huge Well Done to all of the Other Mini Racers out there who Enjoy what they Do and show the World their Dedicated Passion and Commitment to Keeping British Racing Alive and Well.
Pre 66 Mini's (Race 15 Results)
Pre 66 Mini's were up Next and a whole Host of Classic Minis had taken to the track during their Formation Lap with Mini's from a By Gone Era that Showed Beauty and a Really Fierce Competitive Nature during the Pre 66 Category of Mini Racing.
During Qualifying the Previous Day (Ian Curley) Narrowly Beat Endaf Owens to Pole by just 0.254 with a Very Fast and Committed Lap Endaf Had to settle for Second Place while (Phil Brown)would take Third.
But today out of all three drivers who would be Brave Enough to challenge Ian and Endaf both Drivers who are very Competitive in their Racing and who both want to Win This One Race.
In First Place was (Endaf Owens) in his Mini Cooper S with a Best Lap Time of 58.026 and a Top Speed of 73.85mph. A Very Fast and Fearless Drive from Endaf who looked like he was Really Enjoying throwing that Mini Around in his Very Aggressive Driving Style. Congratulations Endaf
In Second Place was (Jeff Smith) in his Mini Cooper S with a Best Lap Time of 57.993 and a Top Speed of 73.84mph. Well Done Jeff an Awesome Drive and Keeping up with Endaf was no Easy Task.
In Third Place was (Ian Curley) in his Mini Cooper S with a Best Lap Time of 58.053 and a Top Speed of 73.32mph. Amazing Work Ian A Very Strong Drive for Third Place on the Podium.
What an Exciting Race for the Pre 66 Mini's with Both Endaf Owens and Jeff Smith Really Driving Hard and Defending both of their positions thought the Course of the entire Race. Also Well Done to Ian for Another 3rd Place Victory as Well as all other Drivers Racing.
Teekay Couplings Production GTI Championship (Race 14 Results)
The Teekay Couplings and Production GTI Championship was up next and with a whole Range of VF Golf GTI'S in one Race it was Going to be a Very Quick and Action Packed Race to Watch.
During Qualifying (Martyn Walsh) took the Pole with (Adam Hance) and (John Beale) in Second and Third Place Respectively.
With So Many Evenly Matched Cars Taking Part in the Race This was Really going to be About Driver Ability and Car Control to see who could extract that little bit more performance out of their Machine for a Victory.
In First Place was (Simon Hill) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 56.824 and a Top Speed of 71.05mph. Amazing Driving Simon Pushing that VW to its Limits and Really showing off the Complete Understanding of Driver and their Car around the Race Track.
In Second Place was (Adam Hanke) in his VW Golf GTI MK5 with a Best Lap Time of 56.682 and a Top Speed of 71.02mph. Very Well Done Adam and a Really Spirited Drive from a Fantastic Driver to gain Second Place.
In Third Place was (Hendry Riley) in his VW Golf GTI With a Best Lap Time of 57.212 and a Top Speed of 71.01mph. Fantastic Work Hendry Driving the Wheels off that Thing and Taking Home Third Place.
What a Fantastic Starting Race with Plenty of Action and Drivers Working Hard at the Wheel and Thought the entire Race to try and Gain a Spot on the Podium.
Lets see what Race 2 Brings and Who May be able to Mount a challenge to the Top Three Drivers.
Teekay Couplings Production GTI Championship (Race 20 Results)
In First Place was (Simon Vercoe) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 1:08.465 and a Top Speed of 62.13mph. What A Drive from Simon Vercoe Pushing that Golf to the Edge of the Track through Paddock Hill Bend and Making sure to Keep the Power on High thought the Entire Race for a Successful 1st Place Victory
In Second Place was (Hendry Riley) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 1:08.886 and a Top Speed of 61.88mph. Amazing Driving there Once again Hendry for Second Place
In Third Place was (Simon Hill) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 1:08.853 and a Top Speed of 61.81mph. Well Done Simon Pushing Hard and Making sure to Stay on the Podium Position for Third Place
What a Fantastic Set of Drivers and Race Cars all showing Different Racing styles and Lines but with Equally Matched Machinery. a Big Congratulations to Simon Vercoe Hendry and Simon for their Incredible Victories and Race Craft when out on the Track and Good Luck To Everyone Else.
Z Cars Racing & New Generation Production BMW Championship (Race 8 Results)
The Last Race of The Day and its the BMW New Generation and Z Cars Championship. With Many Different BMW'S Taking Part in this Race Speed Skill and Concentration will all be key Factors in Getting either a Win or a Podium Position.
During Qualifying on Saturday Chris Murphy took the Pole with Jack Wood Second and Edd Giddings Third. Three Drivers all with Many Hours of Racing Experience under their belt.
With The Race About to Start Lets Find out Who Will be The Last Ones to take First Second and Third Place on the Podium in Todays Racing.
In First Place was (Chris Murphy) in his BMW Z4 with a Best Lap time of 55.880 and a Top Speed of 75.95mph. Incredible Drive there Chris Taking the Win and Showing just how to Drive a Z4 BMW around the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit. Congratulations.
In Second Place was (Edd Giddings) in his BMW Z4 with a Best Lap Time of 56.481 and a Top Speed of 75.90mph. Amazing work there Edd with Some Incredible Driving and Keeping Pace with Chris Made for a Really Entertaining Battle.
In Third Place was (Matthew Dance) in his BMW Z4 With a Best Lap Time of 56.526 and a Top Speed of 75.16mph. Well Done Matthew Finishing in Third Place and Taking Home a Wonderful Victory.
And With that The End of Another Perfect and Incredible Days Racing comes to an End at Brands Hatch. The Mini Festival always knows How to Bring out the Best in both Drivers and Cars and Has a Real Atmosphere about the Love for the Little British Icon. The Spectators and The Raving Drivers a Like Really Cherish this Event and I Hope to see it and Document it Many More Times.
A Final Congratulations to Chris Edd and Matthew for their Superb Drives and to all Other Competitors Across the Entire Weekend for sharing their Love and Passion for Motorsport Helping to inspire the Many Different Young Talent's to One Day Achieve their own Racing Dreams.
See You All Again Next Year!
We made a short notice booking to Copenhagen, Jayne had the first week in September booked off and we wanted to try and do a city break. Five nights hardly seemed enough but the short flight was ok. We flew over home heading east on a beautiful morning. I love flying over an area that I know and being able to see it from above. We had been warned that Copenhagen was expensive-it was! I hadn’t done any research before we set off but on the flight over, I read that taxis were expensive, so it was best to use the Metro from the airport, it isn’t far in to the city and the Metro was fairly easy to use. However! We should have caught the train, I read this whist we were sat on the Metro it has to be said! The nearest Metro stop, which I was frantically trying to work out, using my phone, travelling in and out of tunnels, turned out to be a 1.5 mile walk from our hotel, the rail station was .5. Never mind we were there to walk-subject to my lately diagnosed arthritic ankle, we just didn’t want to be towing suitcases over cobbled pavements at the same time.
We were staying in the Tivoli Hotel which was described as central, it is near Central Station but you wouldn’t describe it as central to the city. Our room wasn’t ready but we could upgrade for a modest amount plus we realised it would be a good idea to include breakfast in the upgrade deal. A good move as it turned out. Our room overlooked the train lines-all twelve of them!! We could already hear train brakes squealing along with the thump thump of steel wheels rolling over points and joints. It’s true to say that Central Station is a 24/7 operation. The overnight noise didn’t bother Jayne but I could hear it all night.
We dumped our stuff and I loaded up with the backpack and camera and we were straight out there. Copenhagen is a relatively small city but there is a lot to see. We were soon finding out that it has an extensive network of canals and bridges and these are a major feature of life in the city. Pan flat, the cyclist rules, There appeared to be twice as many bikes as residents, with countless thousands propped up everywhere you went. Where ever you looked there was silent conveyor of sit up and beg cycles being ridden in all directions. You soon got used to looking over your shoulder before making a move. The vast majority of bikes are left unlocked and almost no one wears a helmet ( I’m a no helmet man, much to the annoyance of the helmet zealots). Copenhagen is reputedly the happiest place in the world and it certainly came across as friendly and relaxed. It is, though, one of the most expensive cities in the world and two burgers and two small glasses of wine at Nyhavn cost us £50. Comically, there were four people, local to us, shouting out Jayne’s name, they had seen us going past and we had a laugh about the prices, They were sat drinking beer at £8.50 a pint. Despite the expense, the place was packed with people parting with their money. Wages are very high locally, as are the taxes. The high wages and high costs must feed each other in an upward spiral I would have thought.
Unfortunately the cost of entering buildings to go up towers etc. for a higher view of the city was also very expensive (to us). The tower at Christiansborg Palace is free but restricted by the lift system and you don’t get to the top, it does also open later than the others so you have a chance of seeing sunset over the city. Unfortunately the lifts were out of order on one of our best weather days. We did get to go up the day after but it was dull and I wasn’t overly impressed. The spiral tower across in Christiana, The Church of Our Saviour, was far more impressive. We climbed the tower here just after it opened on a stunning morning and the views are fantastic. There will be incredible bottlenecks when it’s busy though on the corkscrew stairs that get progressively narrower towards the top. Some people hog it to take endless selfies at the top and it is extremely tight up there, you can’t move up until they come down.
As usual, we tried to get to some out of the way places, with only five days and mixed weather though we had enough mainstream destinations to see. We had a day of heavy rain so we went back to the rail station which was a good indoor (and free!) destination, and made umbrellas and the rain the focal point of that days photos. The entire Danish navy seemed to be at anchor, we just missed an open day on one ship. Some I could photograph, others were guarded and had restrictions, I got the evil eye from a couple of guards as the spotted the big Canon in my hand. I can’t imagine that they could police the Japanese and stop them from getting their photos and selfies though. I always act very openly with the camera and if people look at me suspiciously I smile and give them the thumbs up. In a rail station I usually ask the police. In Central Station the police were in their station and I never saw one move out, it is covered by extensive CCTV but there were some very unpleasant people, drinking and watching for people being careless with their belongings. We were lucky to be in the station on Sunday as a tourist steam train arrived, it sat at the platform belching smoke and steam for fifteen minutes, it was also coming back in an hour so we had an expensive coffee and waited to see it again. There was big military event outside the Christiansborg Palace on Monday, with a parade through the city that came past just as we were in a good spot to view it. The area was full of soldiers wearing their medals. We haven’t discovered the reason, although someone suggested a passing out parade for new recruits. Maybe the ships were in port for this as well.
Tivoli Gardens is another big draw and we went in, again it was fairly expensive, it had been a stunning day and the biggest problem was contrast, with deep shadows and a bright blue sky. We stayed until dark, it opens late and is very colourful. We went on the world’s highest carousel and got flung around 260 odd feet in the air. Luckily, we also found a bar that served wine at ‘only’ £5.60 a glass so we sat and watched people have fun screaming and shrieking above us.
There are many buildings with copper domes, entire copper roofs, even modern buildings are often clad in either brass or copper to blend in with the ancient buildings around them. Like every city we have visited, tower cranes are in abundance. There is a lot of development going on and unfortunately a lot of it is around buildings that you would want to photograph. We walked 12 to 14 mile every day and took in most of the sights. We didn’t really do any interiors, only towers and the railway station. At the time of writing I haven’t looked at what I’ve got, I have around 3000 shots, some on the G1X which I used when it was raining heavily as it easy to put in a pocket. I have a lot less time for editing these days so it will be a long process I think. To save time I am going to create a list of generic tags that I can copy and paste to each upload – the time saving is enormous – so apologies to anyone who gets a photo of a canal when they wanted a steam train or vice versa.
GENERATION OF HIGH QUALITY:
(Is a human / generation that is able to do as follows below):
1. OVERCOME VARIOUS problema ACHIEVE ANY DESIRE =
= Healing .......................for self and others; distance / near
= Achieve ...... .................for self and others; distance / near
= Reach ......................... love for self and others; distance / near
= Happiness, etc. ............ for self and others; distance / near
2. CHILDREN UNDER THE NEED = BEFORE / AFTER BIRTH =
= Face......... to conform with the wishes
= Nature ......to conform with the wishes
= Genitals .....to conform with the wishes
= Twin / no.. accordance with the wishes
= Ability ........to comply with the wishes
= IQ..............for liking
= Its future, ..etc. to conform with the wishes
3. SOME LETTERS PASSWORD..... free ( OWN CREATION)
4. COPYRIGHT COMBINED SOME POETRY FROM NAME =
= Name and meaning / purpose of poetry depends request ....(Free)
Please Sorry not to be discussed, discussed in the liver and then get GENERATION HIGH QUALITY send USD; 1,500,000 (to point 1 and point 2) to: Rosida no. rek.654801002820505 BRI branch: 6548 units Sumenep Kalianget East Java Indonesia then send it to us: full address, profiles, and desire through PO.BOX, sms / call, email.atau you can come directly to our hut.
Then you will get:
1. some books to guide science GENERATION HIGH QUALITY good to use before marriage / after, before the birth / thereafterwith this book you will learn and be able to:
a. OVERCOME VARIOUS problema ACHIEVE ANY DESIRE =
= .............. Healing for self and others; distance / near
= Achieve .............. for self and others; distance / near
= Reach ............. love for self and others; distance / near
= Happiness, etc. ............ for self and others; distance / near
b. CHILDREN UNDER THE NEED = BEFORE / AFTER BIRTH =
= Face ...................... to conform with the wishes
= Nature................... to conform with the wishes
= Genitals..................to conform with the wishes
= Twin / no................to accordance with the wishes
= Ability .....................to comply with the wishes
= IQ ..........................for liking
= Its future,............... etc. to conform with the wishes
2. MIXED FOODS, BEVERAGES efficacious for consumption during the 24h X a month, so you will learn and be able to:
a. OVERCOME VARIOUS problema ACHIEVE ANY DESIRE =
= .............. Healing for self and others; distance / near
= Achieve .............. for self and others; distance / near
= Reach ............. love for self and others; distance / near
= Happiness, etc. ............ for self and others; distance / near b. CHILDREN UNDER THE NEED = BEFORE / AFTER BIRTH =
= Face ...................... to conform with the wishes
= Nature................... to conform with the wishes
= Genitals..................to conform with the wishes
= Twin / no................to accordance with the wishes
= Ability .....................to comply with the wishes
= IQ ..........................for liking
= Its future,............... etc. to conform with the wishes
3. manual close / far away forever (if we die our generation will continue; (transfer of energy and other such) so you will learn and be able to:
a. OVERCOME VARIOUS problema ACHIEVE ANY DESIRE =
= .............. Healing for self and others; distance / near
= Achieve .............. for self and others; distance / near
= Reach ............. love for self and others; distance / near
= Happiness, etc. ............ for self and others; distance / near b. CHILDREN UNDER THE NEED = BEFORE / AFTER BIRTH =
= Face ...................... to conform with the wishes
= Nature................... to conform with the wishes
= Genitals..................to conform with the wishes
= Twin / no................to accordance with the wishes
= Ability .....................to comply with the wishes
= IQ ..........................for liking
= Its future,............... etc. to conform with the wishes
alifi30271@hotmail.comalif30271@yahoo.co.idalif30271@ymail.comalifi30271@gmail.comalifi30271@yahoo.comal30271@yahoo.comhttp://alifi30271.blogspot.com/http://generationofhighlyqualified.blogspot.com/http://alif30271.blogspot.com/http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/alif30271http://my.opera.com/alif30271http://www.filmannex.com/alifiyasintadewi-nurqodrihttp:generationofhighlyqualified.blogspot.com/www.myspace.com/551149748http://groups.google.com/group/generation-high-qualityhttp://www.mixpod.com/alif30271http://www.flickr.com/photos/alifi30271yahoocomhttp://alifi30271.blogspot.com/http://generationofhighlyqualified.blogspot.com/http://alif30271.blogspot.com/http://profile.typepad.com/alifiyasintadewisahidi.achmad @ yahoo.com rsida@ymail.com
SMS = 081331412197 = 087850539399 = 081939047397
Rosida SAHIDI / alifiyasintadewi nurqodri Klg POBOX.30271 69 471 INDONESIA JL. PORT KERTASADA No.38 RT.02/01 Kalianget SUMENEP 69 471 EAST JAVA INDONESIA
* While it is not yet born, later born, the child - children, adolescence, adulthood, so parents, if in the future it is better than all the elements (Chronicle, seeds, lathe, ancestor, and weight), it will be good precisely on The next period, or the next descent. (That's rotation system, if either it will be good also in the future - which will be passed next time.) But that does not mean there is a problem for which the system can not get / create GENERATION OF HIGHLY qualified ...! Before the marriage, before birth, or after birth, GENERATION OF HIGHLY qualified to be created.
So far away before marriage, there was no system of creation, how generations / children that we want, of this process we will know how to actually solve various problems from within ourselves or others, and how to achieve all desires ranging fromin themselves, then help others After birth we were able to drive to create, how abilitasnya, his IQ, character, future, etc., so that our children become the generation that highly qualified.
After birth GENERATION OF HIGHLY Qualified created through two methods:
1.metode in dlahir / sharia / real (through our assistance)
2.metode inner / supernatural (through our assistance)
* After being born under the control arms with MOTHER LOVE:1.method is dlahir / visible / tangible, MOM, DAD, and FAMILY will be more visible to direct, create for children / generation is to become GENERATION OF HIGHLY qualified. 2. methods are unseen through our aid.
* Nature after birth will be brought to nature - nature in the natural maturation of the length distribution, this is where (in nature after the birth of many banks and management of data storage for your child / children / next generation), negatifpenyimpananannya / planting, it will be negative pendewasaannya . then .......... how to create pendewasaannya?GENERATION OF HIGHLY order to become qualified ?.... contact us to get the method. (All goods will be shipped to your place)
* In the arms of the mother and father, and families: making peace happily embrace the affection (without interference of other negative plan brain thinking) that would make the implementation of ITS THE PEACEFUL, HAPPY, LOVE, affectionate, THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR
* Starting from happiness within yourself, then direct the happiness to the wife, or husband, (co-exist and complement between husband and wife). Subsequent to the generation / our child, in community groups, state, and even the world so it will be in accordance with the purpose of the creator, and the goal THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR will be the creation of perfect beings called human.
By creating GENERATION OF HIGHLY qualified then, each of the individual, every family, every group of society, every citizen, and every race and human beings will be in accordance with the wishes, goals, ideals of every self, every family, every human being on earth as the purpose of religion, state and nation, even as the purpose of the creator, as the purpose of THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR will be the creation of perfect beings called human
GENERASI BERKWALITAS TINGGI :
(adalah manusia/generasi yang mampu untuk berbuat sebagaimana berikut di bawah ini) :
1. ATASI BERBAGAI MACAM PROBLEMA MENCAPAI SEGALA KEINGINAN=
=penyembuhan..............untuk diri dan orang lain ; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cita..............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cinta.............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=kebahagiaan,dll............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
2. ANAK SESUAI KEINGINAN =SEBELUM/SETELAH LAHIR=
=wajahnya......................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=sifatnya........................ agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kelaminnya...................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kembar/tidaknya..........agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=ability............................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=IQ-nya..........................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=masa depannya,dll.......agar sesuai dengan keinginan
3. BEBERAPA HURUF SANDI CIPTAAN SENDIRI ........................(gratis)
4. CIPTA PUISI DARI GABUNGAN BEBERAPA NAMA=
=nama dan makna/tujuan puisi tergantung permintan............................. (gratis)
Mohon ma'af bukan untuk di diskusikan, diskusikan pada hati lalu dapatkan GENERATION HIGH QUALITY
kirim Rp;1.500.000 (untuk point 1 dan point 2)
ke :ROSIDA no. rek.654801002820505 BRI cabang: 6548 unit kalianget sumenep Jawa Timur Indonesia
kemudian kirim kepada kami: alamat lengkap, profil, dan keinginan lewat Po.Box,sms/call, email.atau anda dapat datang langsung ke gubug kami.
Maka anda akan mendapatkan:
1. beberapa kitab ilmu penuntun menjadi GENERATION HIGH QUALITY baik digunakan sebelum nikah/setelahnya, sebelum adanya kelahiran/setelahnya
dengan kitab ini anda akan belajar dan mampu untuk bisa:
a. ATASI BERBAGAI MACAM PROBLEMA MENCAPAI SEGALA KEINGINAN=
=penyembuhan..............untuk diri dan orang lain ; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cita..............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cinta.............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=kebahagiaan,dll............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
b. ANAK SESUAI KEINGINAN =SEBELUM/SETELAH LAHIR=
=wajahnya...................... agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=sifatnya........................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kelaminnya...................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kembar/tidaknya..........agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=ability............................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=IQ-nya..........................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=masa depannya,dll.......agar sesuai dengan keinginan
2. CAMPURAN MAKANAN,MINUMAN BERKHASIAT untuk di konsumsi selama 24jam X satu bulan, sehingga anda akan belajar dan mampu untuk bisa:
a. ATASI BERBAGAI MACAM PROBLEMA MENCAPAI SEGALA KEINGINAN=
=penyembuhan..............untuk diri dan orang lain ; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cita..............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cinta.............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=kebahagiaan,dll............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
b. ANAK SESUAI KEINGINAN =SEBELUM/SETELAH LAHIR=
=wajahnya...................... agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=sifatnya........................ agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kelaminnya...................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kembar/tidaknya..........agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=ability............................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=IQ-nya..........................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=masa depannya,dll.......agar sesuai dengan keinginan
3. panduan jarak dekat/jauh selamanya (jika kami mati generasi kami akan melanjutkannya; (transfer energi dan lain lain semacamnya) sehingga anda akan belajar dan mampu untuk bisa:
a. ATASI BERBAGAI MACAM PROBLEMA MENCAPAI SEGALA KEINGINAN=
=penyembuhan..............untuk diri dan orang lain ; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cita..............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=mencapai cinta.............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
=kebahagiaan,dll............untuk diri dan orang lain; jarak jauh/dekat
b. ANAK SESUAI KEINGINAN =SEBELUM/SETELAH LAHIR=
=wajahnya......................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=sifatnya........................ agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kelaminnya...................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=kembar/tidaknya..........agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=ability............................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=IQ-nya..........................agar sesuai dengan keinginan
=masa depannya,dll.......agar sesuai dengan keinginan
alifi30271@hotmail.com
alif30271@yahoo.co.id
alif30271@ymail.com
alifi30271@gmail.com
alifi30271@yahoo.com
al30271@yahoo.com
generationofhighlyqualified.blogspot.com/
www.mybloglog.com/buzz/alif30271
www.filmannex.com/alifiyasintadewi-nurqodri
http:generationofhighlyqualified.blogspot.com/
groups.google.com/group/generation-high-quality
www.flickr.com/photos/alifi30271yahoocom
generationofhighlyqualified.blogspot.com/
profile.typepad.com/alifiyasintadewi
sahidi.achmad@yahoo.com
rsida@ymail.com
SMS =081331412197 =087850539399 =081939047397
ROSIDA SAHIDI/alifiyasintadewi nurqodri
POBOX.30271 KLG 69471 INDONESIA
JL. PELABUHAN KERTASADA NO.38 RT.02/01 KALIANGET SUMENEP JAWA TIMUR 69471 INDONESIA
*Semasih belum lahir, kemudian lahir, masa anak - anak, masa remaja, dewasa, jadi orang tua, jika dalam pada masa itu adalah baik dari semua unsur (babad, bibit, bubut, bebet,dan bobot), maka akan baik pulalah pada masa berikutnya, atau keturunan berikutnya.(itulah sistem rotasi , jika baik maka akan baik pula pada masa - masa yang akan dilalui berikutnya).
Tetapi bukan berarti bagi yang sistemnya ada masalah tidak bisa mendapatkan/menciptakan GENERATION OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED...!
Sebelum menikah, sebelum lahir,ataupun setelah lahir,GENERATION OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED dapat diciptakan.
Maka jauh jauh sebelum menikah, dari sana sudah ada sistem penciptaan, bagaimana generasi/anak yang kita inginkan, dari proses ini kita akan tahu bagaimana sebenarnya mengatasi berbagai macam problema dari dalam diri kita sendiri atau orang lain,dan bagaimana cara mencapai segala keinginan mulai dari dalam diri, kemudian membantu orang lain
Setelah lahir pun kita dapat mengarahkan menciptakan; bagaimana abilitasnya, IQ-nya, sifatnya,masa depannya,dll, sehingga anak kita menjadi generasi yang highly qualified.
Setelah lahir GENERATION OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED diciptakan melalui dua metode:
1.metode secara dlahir/syariat/nyata (melalui bantuan kami)
2.metode batin/ghaib (melalui bantuan kami)
*Setelah lahir yang tengah berada dalam kekuasaan dekapan KASIH IBU dengan:
1. metode secara dlahir/nampak/ nyata,IBU,AYAH, dan KELUARGA akan lebih nampak untuk mengarahkan,menciptakan agar anak/generasi adalah menjadi GENERATION OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED.
2. metode secara ghaib melalui bantuan kami.
*Alam setelah kelahiran pun akan di bawa kepada alam - alam yang panjang pendistribusiannya pada alam pendewasaan, disinilah (pada alam setelah kelahiran ini banyak dan penuh bank penyimpanan data bagi si kecil/anak/generasi penerus), negatifpenyimpananannya/penanamannya,maka akan negatif pendewasaannya.
lalu.......... bagaimana menciptakan pendewasaannya? agar menjadi GENERATION OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED?.... hubungi kami untuk mendapatkan metodenya. (semua barang akan dipaketkan ke tempat anda)
*Dalam dekapan sang ibu dan ayah ,serta keluarga: menjadikan dekapan damai bahagia kasih mesra (tanpa dicampuri pemikiran otak rencana negatif lain) yang akan menjadikan implementasi dari SANG PEMBERI DAMAI, BAHAGIA, KASIH,MESRA, SANG MAHA PENCIPTA
*Dimulai dari kebahagiaan dalam diri, kemudian mengarahkan kebahagiaan pada istri,atau suami,(saling mengisi dan melengkapi antara suami istri).selanjutnya pada generasi/anak kita, pada kelompok masyarakat,negara,bahkan dunia sehingga akan sesuai dengan tujuan pencipta, serta tujuan SANG MAHA PENCIPTA akan diciptakannya makhluk sempurna yang bernama manusia.
Dengan mencipta GENERATION OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED maka,setiap diri pribadi,setiap keluarga,setiap kelompok masyarakat,setiap warga negara,dan setiap umat dan makhluk manusia akan sesuai dengan keinginan,tujuan,cita-cita dari setiap diri,setiap keluarga,setiap umat manusia didunia sebagaimana tujuan agama,negara dan bangsa,bahkan sebagaimana tujuanpencipta, sebagaimana tujuan SANG MAHA PENCIPTA akan diciptakannya makhluk sempurna yang bernama manusia.
Community Stage @ Peace in the Park 2014
The festival season has started in Sheffield. First this year was Peace in the Park; a popular alt/indie flavoured festival featuring local musicians, artists and dance groups.
I have a set with 101 photos.
at Preston Art Supply, Louisville. A shame that you might not be able to find this stuff at all in a few years, just "vinyl plotter software." So lame.
"Our Blessed Mother is the rose that I’ll never be able to describe. She’s my sweet mother, I love my blessed mother, I love her so much. And I thank the Lord for the love He has given me to be able to love His mother and to continue to love, because without the grace of God I cannot love our Blessed Mother and I cannot love God too. So I just love the Lord for everything He has done and given me through our Blessed Mother. She's the advocate; she sits at the foot of the Cross and cries all the time for us, she loves us so much."
~Maureen from Uganda
Medieval statue of Our Lady from The Cloisters, New York City.
Todd wasn't able to make it out to the Neighbor's of the Strip Photography show. So I called in his body double...Mayor Luke Ravenstahl
1) My big dolly wish for 2014 is .... be able to go to Blythecon and meed all of you, Flickr friends!!!!!!
2) More Petronitas headband, they are so cute!!!!
3) Some Funny Bunny dresses and hat!!!!!!
4) Some SqueakyMonkey dresses!!!!
5) And............. Ok ok ok ... I said no more dolls but this guy is so charming.... who can resist him???
NOT MY PICS.... please let me know if you want your picture removed!
1. Poe, 2. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 3. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 4. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 5. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 6. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 7. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 8. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 9. BCEU 2014: Amsterdam!!!, 10. Las diademas Petronitas | The Petronitas headbands, 11. My creation, 12. My creation, 13. wish14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
+ 1 IN COMMENTS!!!!!!
Day 2 of Mini Festival at Brands Hatch and after a Superb Day of Both Racing and High Speed Action on the Saturday Sunday Was Promising to be a lot of the Same but with even more Racing to Look forward too.
With 2 Races for both Miglia class and Dunlop Mini Sevens as well as Formula 3 The Days events were already shaping up to be One for The History Books with Multiple Fierce and Competitive Drivers from Saturday Looking to Improve and Win their Respective Classes.
Lets take a Look at what Will be Racing Today and see which of the Drivers can Push Hard and Aim for a Win in their Respective Class.
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Miglia (Race 9 Results)
First up onto the Track was The Dunlop Mini Miglia Challenge and after a Very Intense Qualifying Battle Yesterday (Aron Smith) Took the Pole with (Andrew Jordan) Second and (James Cuthbertson) in Third Place. Will all Three Men be able to Keep their Positions come the Race or will they start to fall down the order once Racing Gets Underway. Lets find out.
In First Place was (Endaf Owens) in his Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.221 and a Top Speed of 78.76mph. Fantastic Drive there Endaf who was Definitely not Afraid to get that Miglia Sideways as he Raced his Way through the Field to take a Dominant Victory.
In Second Place was (Andrew Jordan) In His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.498 and a Top Speed of 78.64mph. Amazing Driving from Andrew Showing what a Fantastic Mini Racer he is as well as a Superb BTCC Driver as well using his Skills Learned from his BTCC Racing to Hold on for Second Place.
In Third Place was (Aaron Smith) in His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.449 and a Top Speed Of 78.63mph. Awesome Work there Aaron Putting on an Incredible Display Of Driving Commitment and Skill to Keep 3rd Place and Take the Final Podium Spot.
What a Start to the Days Racing with Three Top Drivers Battling out for a Victory and Showing what they can do when it comes to Competitive Miglia Racing. What New Challenges will be Seen in Race 2 as each Drivers Gets Ready to do Battle once again and this Time who will be the one to Claim that All Important Victory.
Lets Find out
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Miglia (Race 17 Results)
In First Place was (Endaf Owens) In His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.862 and A Top Speed of 54.862mph. Very Fast and Quick Racing from Endaf who was Pushing as Hard as he Could to keep the Gap wide Open and ensure a Victory. Amazing Driving
In Second Place was (Aaron Smith) in His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.773 and a Top Speed of 75.23mph. Fantastic Drive there Aron Really Great Work and taking Second Place away from the Previous Second Place Winner (Andrew Jordan)
In Third Place was (Andrew Jordan) in His Miglia with a Best Lap Time of 54.913 and a Top Speed of 75.21mph. Another Storming Drive from Andrew to take Third Place this Time Well Done.
What Another Amazing Race will all three Top Drivers Pushing their Miglia's Hard and all wanting to achieve that 1st Place Finish. To all other Drivers out there Good Luck and Keep Pushing Yourselves to Work Harder and you will Achieve what it is that you so Desire.
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Se7en (Race 13 Results)
Dunlop Mini Sevens were next up onto the Circuit and with Cars that all Have a Very Colourful set of Liveries and Drivers Ready to go this Next Race was going to be One that would be a Fantastic Watch from either Paddock Hill or The Main Straight as the Minis would be Blasting Past at Nearly 75mph.
Previously Yesterday During Qualifying it was (Jeff Smith) who took the Pole with (Nick Fowler) in Second Place and (Spencer Wanstall) in Third Place with all Three Drivers being Separated by Less than Half a Second as they Crossed the Line to Finish Qualifying.
With Three Very Experienced Drivers at the Front and a Whole Grid of other Great Drivers Ready Lets see what Results this Race will bring.
In First Place was (Jeff Smith) in his Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 59.566 and a Top Speed of 72.29mph. Amazing work Jeff Pushing that Little Mini Seven to its Limits and taking First Place.
In Second Place was (Jonathan Lewis) in his Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 59.197 and a Top Speed of 71.91mph. Another Incredible Drive from Jonathan Keeping Hold of Second Place and taking Home the Spoils from the First Race.
In Third Place was (Nick Fowler) in his Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 59.688 and a Top Speed of 71.83mph. Fantastic Drive there Nick Racing Hard and Managing to Hold onto Third Place on the Podium Well Done.
Mini Racing is Really Turning out to be Very Exciting and Fantastic This Year with so Many Different Winners and Other Drivers working Hard to Keep their Cars is Running and Race Ready condition. A Big Congratulations to Jeff Jonathan and Nick for showing some Seriously Impressive Racing and to all other Drivers Taking Part and enjoying what They Love.
Lets Dive into Race 2 and See who Might make a Leap to 1st Second or Third and who will be able to challenge the Top Three Drivers.
Dunlop Mini Challenges Supported by Mini Spares - Se7en (Race 19 Results)
Race 2 Up Next and things were not going as Smoothly as Most Drivers would Have Wanted as they all Gripped their Steering wheels and Prepared for Battle The Heavens Opened and a Large Rain Shower Engulfed the Track and with already Dark Conditions now getting even Darker it was only a matter of Time before Visibility would be Very Difficult.
Who has the Nerve to Push Hard and Take The Victory and who will be Brave Enough to take Second and Third Place? Lets Find out
In First Place was (Joe Thompson) in His Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 1:06.615 and a Top Speed of 60.38mph. Extremely Well Driven there Joe Pushing Hard but keeping the Mini Under Control in Very Damp and Dark Conditions to take a Superb Victory.
In Second Place was (Mike Jordan) in His Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 1:06.801 and a Top Speed of 60.33mph. Amazing Drive there Mike Well Deserved and Driven too.
In Third Place was (Spencer Wanstall) in His Mini Seven with a Best Lap Time of 1:05.178 and a Top Speed of 60.32mph. Incredible Bravery from Spencer and to Keep that Car on the Track Must Have Taken some Incredible Skill thought the Entire Race.
What a Fantastic Finish to the Mini Sevens Racing Today at Brands Hatch with Multiple Different Winners on the Podium and Some Very Changeable Conditions it made for some Remarkable Racing and Brilliant Overtakes thought.
Congratulations to Joe Mike and Spencer on their Podium Places and Well Done to all Other Mini Seven Drivers for Braving the Conditions to put on a Race that Shows What the British Spirit of Racing is all About. Alex Issigonis would be Proud.
Formula 3 Cup (Race 12 Results)
Formula 3 up Next and with the Track being Mostly Dry before the Start of This Race Each Drivers was Ready to Push Hard and try to take the Victory from the other. Qualifying Yesterday Proved that even a Smaller Grid can still Make for some Intense Racing with Drivers such as (George Line) (Robbie Watts) and (Shane Kelly) showing some Incredible Speed and Capable Car Control thought the Entire Qualifying Session.
With Lots of Aero and a Very Fast set of Dallara F308 Engines Powering them Lets See what the Formula 3's Get up to.
In First Place was (George Line) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Lap Time of 43.825 and a Top Speed of 96.55mph. Incredible Speed and Confidence shown from George behind the wheel of that Formula 3 showing that he was Almost Fearless and in a League of his own. Incredible Driving.
In Second Place was (Robbie Watts) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Lap Time of 43.926 and a Top Speed of 96.39mph. Another Super Driver in Robbie Pushing Hard and Defending Second Place thought the Entire Race and Keeping George Busy on his Toes Most of the Time.
In Third Place was (Shane Kelly) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Lap Time of 44.071 and a Top Speed of 95.88mph. Very Well Done there Shane Racing Hard and Keeping up the Pace with Both Robbie and George in Second and First.
What an Exciting First Race for the Formula 3 Drivers who are all Showing that they All Have the Nerve and Skill to Race Hard and Push where it matters. Congratulations to Stefano George and Dominic and Good Luck to All other F3 Drivers out there for Race 2 Coming up Next.
Formula 3 Cup (Race 21 Results)
With Race 2 About to Start all of the Drivers took off for their Formation Lap and Plenty of Water and Spray was seen Shooting up from the Back of Each Car and Having had the First Race take Place in Dry Conditions thease New Track Conditions would be Very Different for Each Driver and Driving Ability is a Must for Survival Out there. With the 5 Red Lights illuminated the Race Began but who would Finish and take Home The Victory. Lets Find Out
In First Place was (Stefano Leaney) in his F3 Dallara F317 with a Best Lap Time of 50.532 and a Top Speed of 84.71mph. Stefano is Really Proving to be a worthy Drivers to Drive in Formula 3 as Once Again his Sheeree Bravery and Fearless Nature was on Display once again in Conditions that Most other Divers would have thought Twice about Pushing their Machinery to Hard in. Congratulations Stefano.
In Second Place was (George Line) in his F3 Dallara F308 with a Best Lap Time of 52.738 and a Top Speed of 81.07mph. Fantastic Work there George Once Again Demonstraighting how to Race an F3 In Wet Conditions with Beautiful Lines taken thought the Corse of the Race and a Well Deserved Second Place.
In Third Place was (Shane Kelly) in his Dallara F308 with a Best Lap Time of 52.771 and a Too Speed of 80.96mph Another Very Brave and Quick Driver in Wet Conditions with Shane Really Defending Hard and Fast in order to Keep hold of that Well Deserved Third Place.
What an Astonishing Race with Winners in Stefano George and Shane all taking spots on the Podium and Hopefully One Day Having their Chance in Formula 1. Each Driver put on a Super Display of Driving Skill and Keeping their Cars at High Speed on a Wet Track is no Easy Feat. Well Done to all the Other Formula 3 Drivers too Keep Pushing Hard and Making sure you do Everything you Can To One Day Achieve That Victory.
Fastest Mini in the World (Race 11 Results)
Fastest Mini In The World was Up Next and this Racing Series Features Many Familiar Looking Minis and yet Each one has a trick up its Sleeve and that is that their Standard 1275gt Engines have all been Replaced with Engines from Cars that have Considerably more Horse Power. The Goal of the Race is to not Just Win but to also Prove to Everyone that You Have The Fastest Mini in the World.
With Qualifying Yesterday showing Very Quick Pace from (Bill Richards) in his Maguire Club Estate it was clear to see that The Drivers and their cars were in a completely different League to all other Racing Minis there that Weekend. Lets Find out who came First in the First Race and who took the First Title of Fastest Mini in the World.
In First Place was (Harvey Death) in his Austin Mini Cooper S V8 with a Best Lap Time of 51.294 and a Top Speed of 82.01mph. Fantastic Driving from Harvey to Push his V8 Mini to the Limit and take Home First Place and the Top Step on the Podium.
In Second Place was (Bill Richards) in his Maguire Clubman Estate with a Best Lap Time of 53.391 and a Top Speed of 80.15mph. Epic Drive there from Bill Pushing Hard and making sure to Keep Harvey Behind Him.
In Third Place was (Richard Billingham) in his Austin Mini Clubman with a Best Lap Time of 53.347 and a Top Speed of 79.91mph. Very Well Driven there Richard showing the Insane Horse Power thease Mini's have and how they Accelerate and Decelerate much Faster than a Standard Cooper S or even a Racing Mini Seven.
What an Epic Race and Display of Incredible Driving and Battling for the Victory of Fastest Mini in the World. Each Driver Held their Nerve and Push Very Hard Indeed which was Fantastic to see. Congratulations to our Race Winners Harvey Bill and Richard. Lets see what Luck Race 2 Brings.
Fastest Mini in the World (Race 16 Results)
In First Place was (Harvey Death) in his Austin Mini Cooper S V8 with a Best Lap Time of 52.256 and a Top Speed of 79.02mph. Another Fantastic Victory for Harvey who has proven to Have The Fastest Mini in the World and is Really Capable of Driving it as well. Congratulations
In Second Place was (Fabio Luffarelli) in his Mini Classic Saloon with a Best Lap Time of 55.949 and a Top Speed of 76.21mph. Amazing work there Fabio Fantastic to see such an Iconic Mini Out there but with a Twist by putting a Far more Powerful Engine under the hood to Have even more Fun with it. Amazing Build and Super Drive.
In Third Place was (Matthew Skidmore) in his Austin Mini with a Best Lap Time of 55.257 and a Top Speed of 75.71mph. Brilliant Drive Matthew Showing the Real Power and Driver Ability of a car Pushing right onto the limits all the Time.
What an Incredible Days Racing for the Fastest Mini in the World Showcasing Many Classic Favourites that Everyone Loves but with some surprises under each Bonnet. Congratulations to Harvey Fabio and Matthew for their Incredible Victories and Good Luck to all other Teams in the Series.
Mighty Minis & Super Mighty Mini Championship (Race 10 Results)
Mighty Mini's and Super Mighty Mini's were up Next and with a Massive Grid of Both Mighty and Super Mighty Mini's on Display This was going to be another Race that would be well worth the Watch.
From Qualifying Yesterday (Bobby Thompson) took the Pole setting a Very Fast Time of Just 1:00.205 Round the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit with (Ian Slark) and (Stuart Coombs) following Closely Behind in both Second and Third.
With So Many Different Drivers on the Grid and Plenty of Traffic to Navigate Through this First Race was going to be an Epic One to Witness.
In First Place was (Bobby Thompson) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.331 and a Top Speed of 61.14mph. Fantastic Work Bobby Racing at High Speeds and Pushing that Mini around the Circuit in Record Time. Congratulations
In Second Place was (Ian Slark) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.319 and a Top Speed of 61.13mph. Amazing Driving Ian Top Driver and a Fantastic Mini Racer
In Third Place was (Neven Kirkpatrick) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.426 and a Top Speed of 61.07mph. Well Done Neven a Really Well crafted Drive and a truly deserved Third Place.
What a Start to an Amazing Race with so many different Mini's taking to the track and Pushing hard keeping the top Three on their Toes the Entire Time due to How evenly matched each Mini is. Congratulations to Bobby Ian and Neven and See You all in the Final Race.
Mighty Minis & Super Mighty Mini Championship (Race 18 Results)
The Last Race of the Day for the Mighty and Super Mighty Mini's Championship and with a Very Tight Battle at the Top Between Bobby Ian and Neven which one of them will be able to take Home Victory for the Last Time today. Lets Get straight to finding out.
In First Place was (Neven Kirkpatrick) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.029 and a Top Speed of 70.35mph. Phenomenal Drive Neven Fending off Ian in Second Place and Keeping yourself up Front to Win and a Fantastic Way to End the Day with a Victory
In Second Place was (Ian Slark) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.756 and a Top Speed of 70.34mph. Another Brilliant Drive by Regular Ian Slark with Tremendous Car Control and Ability he Really is an Incredible Driver.
In Third Place was (David Kirkpatrick) in his Super Mighty Mini 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.991 and a Top Speed of 70.23mph. Amazing Work David Driving Hard and so Great to see Neven up there In First Place, Always Something to be Proud of.
And So that Ends the Days Racing for The Super Mighty Mini's and Mighty Mini's Racing, A Big Congratulations to Neven Ian and David on their Race Wins and also a Huge Well Done to all of the Other Mini Racers out there who Enjoy what they Do and show the World their Dedicated Passion and Commitment to Keeping British Racing Alive and Well.
Pre 66 Mini's (Race 15 Results)
Pre 66 Mini's were up Next and a whole Host of Classic Minis had taken to the track during their Formation Lap with Mini's from a By Gone Era that Showed Beauty and a Really Fierce Competitive Nature during the Pre 66 Category of Mini Racing.
During Qualifying the Previous Day (Ian Curley) Narrowly Beat Endaf Owens to Pole by just 0.254 with a Very Fast and Committed Lap Endaf Had to settle for Second Place while (Phil Brown)would take Third.
But today out of all three drivers who would be Brave Enough to challenge Ian and Endaf both Drivers who are very Competitive in their Racing and who both want to Win This One Race.
In First Place was (Endaf Owens) in his Mini Cooper S with a Best Lap Time of 58.026 and a Top Speed of 73.85mph. A Very Fast and Fearless Drive from Endaf who looked like he was Really Enjoying throwing that Mini Around in his Very Aggressive Driving Style. Congratulations Endaf
In Second Place was (Jeff Smith) in his Mini Cooper S with a Best Lap Time of 57.993 and a Top Speed of 73.84mph. Well Done Jeff an Awesome Drive and Keeping up with Endaf was no Easy Task.
In Third Place was (Ian Curley) in his Mini Cooper S with a Best Lap Time of 58.053 and a Top Speed of 73.32mph. Amazing Work Ian A Very Strong Drive for Third Place on the Podium.
What an Exciting Race for the Pre 66 Mini's with Both Endaf Owens and Jeff Smith Really Driving Hard and Defending both of their positions thought the Course of the entire Race. Also Well Done to Ian for Another 3rd Place Victory as Well as all other Drivers Racing.
Teekay Couplings Production GTI Championship (Race 14 Results)
The Teekay Couplings and Production GTI Championship was up next and with a whole Range of VF Golf GTI'S in one Race it was Going to be a Very Quick and Action Packed Race to Watch.
During Qualifying (Martyn Walsh) took the Pole with (Adam Hance) and (John Beale) in Second and Third Place Respectively.
With So Many Evenly Matched Cars Taking Part in the Race This was Really going to be About Driver Ability and Car Control to see who could extract that little bit more performance out of their Machine for a Victory.
In First Place was (Simon Hill) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 56.824 and a Top Speed of 71.05mph. Amazing Driving Simon Pushing that VW to its Limits and Really showing off the Complete Understanding of Driver and their Car around the Race Track.
In Second Place was (Adam Hanke) in his VW Golf GTI MK5 with a Best Lap Time of 56.682 and a Top Speed of 71.02mph. Very Well Done Adam and a Really Spirited Drive from a Fantastic Driver to gain Second Place.
In Third Place was (Hendry Riley) in his VW Golf GTI With a Best Lap Time of 57.212 and a Top Speed of 71.01mph. Fantastic Work Hendry Driving the Wheels off that Thing and Taking Home Third Place.
What a Fantastic Starting Race with Plenty of Action and Drivers Working Hard at the Wheel and Thought the entire Race to try and Gain a Spot on the Podium.
Lets see what Race 2 Brings and Who May be able to Mount a challenge to the Top Three Drivers.
Teekay Couplings Production GTI Championship (Race 20 Results)
In First Place was (Simon Vercoe) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 1:08.465 and a Top Speed of 62.13mph. What A Drive from Simon Vercoe Pushing that Golf to the Edge of the Track through Paddock Hill Bend and Making sure to Keep the Power on High thought the Entire Race for a Successful 1st Place Victory
In Second Place was (Hendry Riley) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 1:08.886 and a Top Speed of 61.88mph. Amazing Driving there Once again Hendry for Second Place
In Third Place was (Simon Hill) in his VW Golf GTI with a Best Lap Time of 1:08.853 and a Top Speed of 61.81mph. Well Done Simon Pushing Hard and Making sure to Stay on the Podium Position for Third Place
What a Fantastic Set of Drivers and Race Cars all showing Different Racing styles and Lines but with Equally Matched Machinery. a Big Congratulations to Simon Vercoe Hendry and Simon for their Incredible Victories and Race Craft when out on the Track and Good Luck To Everyone Else.
Z Cars Racing & New Generation Production BMW Championship (Race 8 Results)
The Last Race of The Day and its the BMW New Generation and Z Cars Championship. With Many Different BMW'S Taking Part in this Race Speed Skill and Concentration will all be key Factors in Getting either a Win or a Podium Position.
During Qualifying on Saturday Chris Murphy took the Pole with Jack Wood Second and Edd Giddings Third. Three Drivers all with Many Hours of Racing Experience under their belt.
With The Race About to Start Lets Find out Who Will be The Last Ones to take First Second and Third Place on the Podium in Todays Racing.
In First Place was (Chris Murphy) in his BMW Z4 with a Best Lap time of 55.880 and a Top Speed of 75.95mph. Incredible Drive there Chris Taking the Win and Showing just how to Drive a Z4 BMW around the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit. Congratulations.
In Second Place was (Edd Giddings) in his BMW Z4 with a Best Lap Time of 56.481 and a Top Speed of 75.90mph. Amazing work there Edd with Some Incredible Driving and Keeping Pace with Chris Made for a Really Entertaining Battle.
In Third Place was (Matthew Dance) in his BMW Z4 With a Best Lap Time of 56.526 and a Top Speed of 75.16mph. Well Done Matthew Finishing in Third Place and Taking Home a Wonderful Victory.
And With that The End of Another Perfect and Incredible Days Racing comes to an End at Brands Hatch. The Mini Festival always knows How to Bring out the Best in both Drivers and Cars and Has a Real Atmosphere about the Love for the Little British Icon. The Spectators and The Raving Drivers a Like Really Cherish this Event and I Hope to see it and Document it Many More Times.
A Final Congratulations to Chris Edd and Matthew for their Superb Drives and to all Other Competitors Across the Entire Weekend for sharing their Love and Passion for Motorsport Helping to inspire the Many Different Young Talent's to One Day Achieve their own Racing Dreams.
See You All Again Next Year!
Escape from Planet A to Planet B - is it a real way out or a dream that will never be able to unfold
Being able to easily research a subject for school projects was a fantasy just a year ago. The computer lab in the picture once had old, outdated computers with many flaws. The old computers would sometimes crash and would not always work. When in the lab you had to wait sometimes the whole class period for one page to load. This made creating papers for school almost impossible, until we received the computers our newer computer lab had purchased less than a few years back. These newer computers work fast and allow ample time to finish school projects and create amazing essays. It is wonderful that the students at Mark Twain High School are able to further their education through computer technology and not have to worry about problems with the system. By having new and updated computers we are promoting healthy lifestyles in our community by furthering our students’ education.
Who has ever been able to capture their dreams? I for one, have. And it is a very magical experience. I never knew why I was able to dream up Ninielle, my Wood Elf, into true being, but I never really wanted to question it. She has been such a joy.
But now I know how hard it is to make a dream a reality. The pain, the exhaustion, and the grief it can cause another being to produce someones dream into reality. And I now know why I was able to bring Ninielle here to my home, and also how to give another lost one, who actually brought her here, to a loving home as well.
Namarie is a being called a Dream Weaver. She has lived here at my home for a countless amount of years, but none of us has ever seen her because she never wished to be seen, being able to become invisible anytime she likes. She looks into our sleeping minds, and picks out our deepest dreams and wishes, and tries to bring them to life for us. It causes her a great pain, and drains her of her magic and energy for a very long time whenever she tries to bring a dream to life. But she doesn't show her fatigue often, though she never smiles, and I believe it's the pain that causes her that melancholy expression.
We all love her, and try our best to never ask for a dream come true, because we know what it costs her, but sometimes, without our knowing or asking, she brings our dreams to life, like she did with Ninielle for me, and we wake up to certain surprises that we never in our waking lives thought would exist.
✔️ DOWNLOAD: www.dropbox.com/sh/hgowiesyn0drxsj/AACYKtjSKmD46sFxzihNwk...
💡HOW ? 🔽
With this colorimetric preset you will be able to highlight the yellows of your videos, thanks to the delicious honey colors!
1️⃣ Method 1: Double left click on the "prfpset."
2️⃣ Method 2: If method 1 does not work ... Go directly to the "effects" tabs from your Adobe Premiere Pro software.
Then, right click, then select 'import' and choose the downloaded colorimetric file ending with "prfpset."
- Music (🎵) = COPY & PASTE [---]
- Video (🎥) = COPY & PASTE [~~~]
- Presets (️) = COPY & PASTE [☼☼☼]
ℹ️ How to use Video: The video is made with free videos and music.
ℹ️ How to use Presets: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ℹ️ How to use Music:
- creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 [Keys of Moon] (Video)
- creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode [Selvi Beats] (Outro)
📋 WHAT ?
🌟 Laurent Guidali - Honey
💫 Presets & Colors World
🌌 Creative Common Presets Galaxy
✨ Presets (️)
📝 Type : Software
🎨 Style : Creation (Lumetri Color)
🔊 Language : International (🇬🇧 Text & Description in English)
📏 HOW MUCH ?
👑 7 Senses
⚡ 5 Intelligences
WHO ?
📡 Posted by Laurent Guidali
️ Presets by Laurent Guidali (Adobe Premiere Pro 2020)
📼 Video by Laurent Guidali (Adobe Premiere Pro 2020)
🌅 Thumbnail by Laurent Guidali (Adobe Photoshop 2020)
🎵 Music by Keys of Moon & Selvi Beats
️Video promoted by eXploration
📼Video Link: youtu.be/X5GYxSaT9fk
~~~ 🎥 VIDEO EDITING ☼☼☼ ️ PRESETS
Laurent Guidali
~~~ ☼☼☼
~~~ 🎥 FILMED
cottonbro
Kelly L
Mary Taylor
Ron Lach
Ketut Subiyanto
Alena Darmel
Yaroslav Shuraev
Abraham Braun
Ivan Khmelyuk
ROMAN ODINTSOV
Anastasia Shuraeva
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Monstera
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Mike Jones
Memory Slash Vision
Gustavo Fring
Musical Motion Graphics & Stock Footage
David Taljat
Tim Samuel
Motion Stock
Roy Buri
Monserrat Soldú
Street Donkey
Magda Ehlers
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Thirdman
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Inspired Images
Sound On
Stef
Manos Daskalakis
Dan Cristian Pădureț
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Kindel Media
Vlada Karpovich
Miguel Á. Padriñán
~~~
--- 🎵 MUSIC
Selvi Beats
📌 Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCyK4mqCda2RIHj1rF7C3O1Q
📌 Beat Stars: www.beatstars.com/trapallvi/tracks
📌 TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@selvibeats
📌 Instagram: www.instagram.com/selvibeats
📌 Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/selverbajrami7
📧 Email: selvibeats.info@gmail.com
Keys of Moon :
📌 Youtube : www.youtube.com/channel/UCWtFgusZT03fNCqtPBrhh9g
📌 Facebook : www.facebook.com/serjo.de.lua.music
📌 Twitter : twitter.com/KeysOfMoon
📌 Soundcloud : soundcloud.com/keysofmoon
📌 Instagram : www.instagram.com/keys_of_moon
💌 serjo.de.lua.music@gmail.com
️ Paypal : www.paypal.me/KeysOfMoon
️ Patreon : www.patreon.com/user?u=10500501
---
🎼Music promoted by eMotion :
📼 Video Link : youtu.be/IEPNVErjStk
📼Video Link : youtu.be/nH-ICNOebEk
📍 WHERE ?
🇫🇷 France [Video eDiting & Preset]
🕓 WHEN ?
🎆 2021 (🎥 Video)
🎆 2021 (️ Presets)
🔖 React with official Hashtags :
#Etoile
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💌 Contact : contactexploration@gmail.com
Disabled and able-bodied UK military personnel competed in this past weekend’s US Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. For the first time, a team of front line medical personnel competed in the 27 October run. Soldiers from the British Army ran alongside members of the AFF Team SideXSide. TEAM Medics were made up of front line doctor and nursing personnel who serve or have served at the front end of Trauma Emergency at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.
After the Spanish Armada, England was able to expand to the point that it could be said, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” You don’t get that kind of power without creating more than a little anymosity among those you are ruling, and Britain was no exception. Yesterday, March 5th, was the 243rd Anniversary of what Americans refer to as the Boston Massacre. On March 5, 1770 British troops fired into a rioting mob. A total of five died, and five more were wounded. These victims are often referred to as “the first casualties of the American Revolution.” As the excerpt from the article below shows, the British alienated the Israelis early in their history, too.
European Jewish immigration to Palestine increased dramatically after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, leading to new land purchases and Jewish settlements. Palestinian resistance to British control and Zionist settlement climaxed with the Arab revolt of 1936-1939, which Britain suppressed with the help of Zionist militias and the complicity of neighboring Arab regimes. After crushing the Arab revolt, the British reconsidered their governing policies in an effort to maintain order in an increasingly tense environment. They issued a White Paper (a statement of political policy) limiting future Jewish immigration and land purchases. The Zionists regarded this as a betrayal of the Balfour Declaration and a particularly egregious act in light of the desperate situation of the Jews in Europe, who were facing extermination. The 1939 White Paper marked the end of the British-Zionist alliance. At the same time, the defeat of the Arab revolt and the exile of the Palestinian political leadership meant that the Palestinian Arabs were politically disorganized during the crucial decade in which the future of Palestine was decided.
There are times when we are controlled by our government and, unfortunately, those in power are not always just and or ethical. That’s why we are advised in Proverbs 29:2, “As the righteous grow powerful people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, people groan.” Knowing what the Arab World has in mind for the Israelis should they ever take control of the Holy Land, it is imperative that we spend our days praying - - praying according to Psalm 122:6 - - praying for the peace of Jerusalem.
For more on this story, visit: Jerusalem Prayer Team Articles Page.
LIKE and SHARE this story to encourage others to pray for peace in Jerusalem, and leave your own PRAYERS and COMMENTS below.
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During my September 2017 trip to Vancouver, I was able to buy one off Kijiji for an acceptable price.. well, OK, a price that I wanted to actually pay.
So Black Widow here comes from the Marvel Variants line where Japanese artists reimagine popular heroes in a new look.
The figure is not quite 1/6 in scale, and features some additional hands along with a pair of pistols, a knife, a Widows Bite (pre/post explosion), and gauntlet gun firing effects.
Oh, like all other PAK figures, this one also comes with a stand that nobody has ever said nice things about.
Like all other toys of this nature, this Black Widow is an action figure at heart, though unlike the higher end stuff like Hot Toys, doesn't have custom tailored outfits and such.
The PAK kind of exists in its own world of quality and price. Most of the figures, particularly the very recent figures, are of a very good quality, but the prices, depending on which market you buy from, approach that of the 1/6 scale crowd.
Anyway, moving on.
With the exception of an ab crunch and actual pivoting neck, Black Widow here has all articulation points.
Paint applications range from excellent (outfit, head) to pretty good (hands).
Joints, particularly those around the wrist, are a bit of an eyesore though at least being black they blend in with the rest of her.
The actual look of the figure is very nice, and matches the cover art fairly closely. The portrait itself is very sharp looking, with no real bearing towards Scarlet Johansson or any particular comic visage.
Overall, the figure is very nicely done, with good quality, but at MSRP it's a real hard sell.. and not just this one in particular.
I think overall, if you can get the same figures from other companies for the same properties, you'd be better off going elsewhere because the price honestly never matches what you should be getting if you comparison shop.
Or.. do what I do and just wait for the price to drop to a point where i make sense.
These poles are for wind turbines at the world's deepest fixed-bottom windfarm off the Scottish coast. The view is across a golf course.
I was able to collect my repaired car from the garage before lunch today, as Mum was up earlyish. I also discovered some new charity shops, which was very exciting! I found some lovely glasses, and a pretty little framed mirror.
At the Rose & Crown, the extension to the outdoor seating area has nearly been completed, with the addition of a fence, and some willow screening on top of the pergola. I took the wheelchair for Mum, as well as her three-wheeled walker, so she could walk in to lunch and be wheeled out afterwards! There is a slight incline, which makes her very tired and puffed out after lunch.
Tug boats bringing Ensco-72 mid size jack-up oil drilling rig into the Tees to Able UK. Front to back in this picture: Fiery Cross, Coatham Cross. Note shipping lane markers and the surprisingly small cable running from Zeus tug (off camera).
I think part of me expected to be able to keep on keeping on. I don't mind stress, the majority of the time it's a very good motivator for me. But if you have a chance to catch your breath, sometimes that split second is what brings you to your knees. With the last few weeks taking on two 5 week classes (and making all As thus far thank you), a certification, dealing with work, missing my boyfriend, my crazy but loving family, the heat, the bills...eventually you stumble. I've never been one to admit defeat. And why there really isn't anything different going on, my mind sort of felt like it was unraveling. That list didn't even include everything I'm wanting or currently involved in with photography. I think I just have such a passion for life that sometimes I have to take a step back, recollect and then get right back on.
Sorry for the lameness in the photography. I can't really promise things will get better, I'm maxed out and I'm not going to give up on the 365-it just might be a bit weak for a while. <3
When I was five, my grandparents visited and gave me two puzzles from Eaton Press, this one and a coastal lighthouse photo scene. While I was able to finish the latter, I would always give up on this one less than halfway through, no matter how many times I tried. Eventually, pieces went missing and the puzzle was thrown away. I loved the scene for its snake-like vines and startled felines, and its thick, purple-backed pieces.
A few years ago, a friend from the German puzzle forum posted a photo of this puzzle, the first time I had seen it in about 30 years. I was especially surprised because Eaton Press was largely a local company, based just a few towns south of Billsville, and I wondered how someone in Europe had managed to obtain a copy. I told her about my memories of this puzzle, and she sent her copy to me. Today, I put in the final piece and feel a sense of victory, over a puzzle that had been a nemesis in my youth.
With the non-grid piece format and the limited palette, the puzzle proved to be very hard for its size, even now, taking me almost 3 hours to complete.
The scene itself is by Victor Joe Gatto, and Eaton provided some information about the artwork on the box bottom. It reads as follows:
The painter of "Jungle Scene" or "Tigers in the Jungle," Victor Joseph Gatto, is a member of one of the art world's most exclusive groups - the genuine American primitive. Gatto's world was limited only by his imagination, and he has left us with his own magnificent interpretations of historic disasters, biblical scenes, well-known fables and even heaven.
Born in Greenwich Village in 1894, Joe Gatto was once described by Sydney Fields in the Daily Mirror as a man who was "never loved by luck." His early years consisted of little more than a series of odd jobs such as stock clerk, washing milk cans, movie extra and finally plumber's assistant. This period also included a six-year stretch when Gatto fought as a featherweight in New York's metropolitan arena. After 32 bouts, he decided the "sport" was too crooked and sought the physically less demanding occupation of steam-fitter. Gatto's first fight earned him a broken nose and $1, which he reportedly gave to a blind woman who was selling shoestrings outside the arena.
Whether it was the fact that Theodore Roosevelt visited the school in which Gatto, age 8, was enrolled and noted that Joe was the "best drawer in his class" or that illness forced Gatto to look for less strenuous work in 1940, a time when local artists were displaying their canvases in abundance in the Washington Square area - and fetching what seemed to Gatto to be enormous prices - that spurred this scrappy little man to pursue his interest in painting is not known. In any event, in his late 40's, this 5 foot, 120 pounder took his dime-store brushes and began turning out a series of primitive paintings which are now acknowledged as very significant contributions to American primitive art. A 1944 exhibition at the Charles Barzansky Gallery was reviewed by Howard Devree who wrote, in The New York Times, "If his technical facility more nearly lived up to his imagination, Victor Joseph Gatto could hardly escape being called an American Rousseau. Knights in a tournament, Cain and Abel in a primeval setting, Indian fur traders amid totem poles - so Gatto lets his fancy take wing. A Niagara scene is made literal through the presence of a vendor of view glasses. His most ambitious and successful picture is a herd of wild horses in the rocky pillars. Among our so-called primitives, Gatto ranks well up."
Gatto stuck to his favorite subjects - jungle animals, farm scenes, knights in shining armor and well-known New York City landmarks, painting them with childlike literalism and dreamy imagination. Despite the fact that he had never seen such scenes and his only contact with animals was at the Bronx Zoo, his canvases began to attract the interest of important collectors. Gatto's works found their way into the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of the City of New York and have been purchased by important primitive collectors such as Somerset Maugham, Laurence Rockefeller, Henry Luce, Huntington Hartford, Rosalind Russell and John Steinbeck.
In spite of Victor Joseph Gatto's successes, he seemed to prefer a life style of spartan solitude to that of Greenwich Village's artist colonies. Gatto was much more at home in a dingy, furnished West Side apartment where he could prop up his canvases on an upholstered chair and laboriously layer on his brilliant paints for hours on end. Although his paintings sold for as much as $1,000 apiece, the little artist was a man who gave his money to family and friends as fast as he earned it. When he died in Miami in 1965, Joe Gatto was living mainly on Social Security payments.
At a time when primitive collectors reluctantly admit the species is doomed, the Joe Gattos, the Grandma Moses and the Morris Hirshfields take on an even greater importance. The world is closing in on the primitive artist as well as the rest of us and, for primitive art, progress is self-defeating.
Completed in 2 hr., 47 mins. with no box reference. Total pieces: 503. 19.9 secs./piece; 180.7 pcs./hr. Difficulty rating: 2.0/10. Special thanks to Sylvia.