A Crash of Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) On The Move. Now Still, Extinct, Erased.
Pen and ink on 19"x24" Bristol Board.
Pen and ink on 19"x24" Bristol Board.
The Western Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis longipes) was recently officially declared extinct. Read here.
All things to nothing descend,
Grow old and die and meet their end...
Nor long shall any name resound
Beyond the grave, unless 't be found
In some clerk's book, it is the pen
Gives immortality to men rhino
(Master Wace (1100 - 1175) - from his Chronicles of the Norman Dukes. Found on the Chart of Harold F Umstott (1907-1922 ) ...and modified by Ces Adorio :)
It was on the same month last year when I posted the above poem. Then I was lamenting the decline of the Northern White rhinoceros and all other extant rhinoceros species due to illegal poaching. Their horns are ignorantly believed by the Chinese and Vietnamese, to have medicinal powers, thus fetching as much as $35,000.00 per horn in China and Vietnam. Since then the Western Black rhinoceros has been declared extinct. The rhinoceros' horns are exactly the same materials as human nails, keratin and have no medicinal value. If they do those who chew their fingernails would have been cured of whatever ails them!
What a shame.
This is a crash of black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) which I started drawing last year on a 19"x24" Bristol Board. I completed it a while ago but never shared it because I have no means of scanning the large finished drawing, so I just took a photo.
I still hope that future generations will be able to see live specimen of the extant rhinoceros, instead of just reading about them in books (or the Internet).
This 19"x24" pen and ink illustration is a part of a series of 4 large drawings I intended to give to my son and daughter. I have only drawn 3, so far. Slacker... :)
