The article deals with the connection between Sumatran rhinos and several plants dependent on their survival. The major part of the ration of Sumatran rhinos consists of fruits that have indigestible seeds. The rhinos disperse them by defecation quite far from the plant that produced them.
As a result, the plants survive because their habitat is not limited to one place. Since fewer than eighty Sumatran rhinos remained alive, it may become harder for these plants not to go extinct because the rhinos were the only animals whose ration consisted of them.
The scientists compared Sumatran rhinos’ and elephants’ rations to see whether they could disperse the seeds of the same plants and found out that twenty-two plants may face the risk of extinction. Though the rations of elephants and rhinos are similar, they are not the same, and that is why it is important to save the latter to let the plants survive as well.