THE newest arrival at a zoo in Hampshire is so big she had to be lifted in using a 40-tonne crane.

Pembe, a three-year-old white rhino, arrived at Marwell Zoo after a 146 mile journey from Colchester Zoo where she was born.

Zoo staff watched as the one-tonne endangered creature was lifted from the lorry into her new home in the Wild Explorers exhibit using a 40-foot crane.

She will be left to get used to her surroundings over the next few days before she’s introduced to Marwell’s other rhinos, Sula, Kiri and three-year-old male Jabari.

She will also graze alongside the zoo’s herd of scimitar-horned oryx and Grevy’s zebra.

Ian Goodwin, Marwell’s collection manager of ‘hoofstock’, travelled to Colchester Zoo to collect her.

He said: “It’s quite a big operation to move a rhino as you can imagine but it all went really well and just as we planned.

"Pembe was very calm and spent most of the time sitting down in the crate and enjoying some food.

“Once we arrived at Marwell, Pembe calmly walked out of the crate into her new home at Wild Explorers.

"She instantly enjoyed discovering the new smells of the other rhinos and exploring her new surroundings.”

There are less than 21,077 white rhinos left in the wild.

The endangered creature is still threatened by poachers who hunt them to sell their horns for traditional medicines and ornaments.