![the rhinoceros the rhinoceros](https://dc1240h7n7gpb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/Gallery2Fa2F92Fa9773cbf-a9a7-4d9d-ac6f-16f69a37aa262FT114_GlenIris_01_03.jpg)
Westbury says that rhinos may have purged deleterious mutations in the last 100 years, allowing them to remain relatively healthy, despite low genetic diversity. This notion is consistent with an apparent lack of accumulated deleterious mutations in rhinos in recent decades. “Continuously low population sizes may indicate that rhinoceroses in general are adapted to low levels of diversity.” “All eight species generally displayed either a continual but slow decrease in population size over the last 2 million years, or continuously small population sizes over extended time periods,” says Mick Westbury at the University of Copenhagen.
![the rhinoceros the rhinoceros](https://www.africanparks.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium_660_x_445/public/teaser_image/2018-03/Rhino_0.jpg)
To some extent, this means that the low genetic diversity we see in present-day rhinos, which are all endangered, is partly a consequence of their biology." Adapted to low levels of diversity “The second important finding is that all rhinoceroses, even the extinct ones, have comparatively low genetic diversity. “We can now show that the main branch in the rhinoceroses’ tree of life is among geographic regions, Africa versus Eurasia, and not between the rhinos that have one versus two horns,” says Professor Love Dalén at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, which is a collaboration between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History.