A 57-YEAR-OLD black rhino named Fausta died Friday in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. According to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, Fausta was the oldest free-ranging black rhino in the world.

Fausta was kept in captivity for the last three years of her survival. Dr. Freddy Manongi said she died of natural causes at the sanctuary after living the majority of her life in the wild.

“Records show that Fausta lived longer than any rhino in the world and survived in the Ngorongoro, free-ranging, for more than 54 years before being moved to the sanctuary in 2016,” Mangongi said in a statement Saturday.

“The health of the rhino began to deteriorate in 2016, when we were forced to put the animal in captivity, after several attacks from hyenas that inflicted severe wounds on the rare animal,” said the statement.

It added that the rhino also lost sight, which further compromised its survival ability in the wild, adding that the rhino survived 57 years without bearing calves.

Fausta was first spotted by a scientist from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1965, when she was just 3 years old.

According to Mangongi, a female southern white rhino named Sana was considered the world’s oldest white rhino until she died in captivity in France at age 55.

The oldest living black rhino in the United States, Elly, apparently died of complications resulting from old ageat the San Francisco Zoo at age 46. Both deaths occurred in 2017. Elly arrived at the zoo as a juvenile in 1974. And over the last 43 years, she gave birth to 14 calves, and witnessed the births of 15 grand calves, six great-grand calves and even a great-great-grand calf.

In December 2016, the oldest black rhino in Kenya died at age 42.

The life expectancy of rhinos is between 37 and 43 years in the wild and more than 50 years in captivity, Mangongi said.

Black rhinos are critically endangered — close to extinction due to illegal poaching and habitat loss. According to the World Wildlife Fund, only about 5,500 black rhinos are alive in the wild today, an improvement after their numbers dropped 98 percent to just 2,500 between 1960 and 1995.(SD-Agencies)