The Sumatran rhinoceros has become extinct in Malaysia, zoologists have announced.

The last of the species in the country succumbed to cancer in the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, it was revealed.

The rhino, named Iman, had suffered from uterine tumours since her capture in March 2014. “Iman’s death came rather sooner than we had expected, but we knew that she was starting to suffer significant pain,” said Augustine Tuuga, the director of the Sabah wildlife department.

“Despite us knowing that this would happen sooner rather than later, we are so very saddened by this news,” added Christina Liew, Sabah environment minister.

Iman escaped death several times over the past few years due to sudden massive blood loss – but on each occasion wildlife officials managed to nurse her back to health. They also obtained her egg cells for a possible collaboration with other scientists to reproduce the critically endangered species through artificial insemination programmes.

Malaysia’s last male Sumatran rhino died in May and another female rhino also died in captivity in 2017. Efforts to breed them have so far proved futile.

The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the rhinoceros species. It once roamed across Asia as far as India, but its numbers have shrunk drastically due to deforestation and poaching. The WWF conservation group estimates that there are only about 80 left, mostly living in the wild in Sumatra.

Their isolation means they rarely breed and may become extinct in a matter of decades, according to conservation group International Rhino Foundation.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list identifies the Sumatran and also the Black and Javan rhinoceros as being critically endangered. Both African and Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.

Rhinoceros are killed for their horns which are sold on the black market because of their supposed medical attributes. The horns are ground up and swallowed as treatments for fevers or convulsions even though they are made primarily of keratin, the same material that makes up hair and fingernails.