Unprecedented video footage has given a rare look at the life of one of the world's most endangered animals in a coup that could help save it from extinction, wildlife campaigners say.

The pictures from Borneo island in Malaysia are believed to be the first ever moving images showing the Sumatran rhinoceros in the wild.

The night-time footage showed a rhinoceros eating, peering through jungle foliage, before it walked up to the camera and sniffed the equipment.

Malaysian officials and the WWF hailed the two-minute clip from a video camera mounted in a forest as a rare look into the rhino's life.

"These are very shy animals that are almost never seen by people and so this video gives us an amazing opportunity to spy on the rhino's behaviour," said Mahedi Andau, director the wildlife department in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island.

The Sumatran rhino is one of the world's most critically-endangered species, with only small numbers left on Indonesia's Sumatra island, Sabah and peninsular Malaysia, the WWF says.

The rhino shot in the two-minute footage is a Bornean subspecies and scientists say there are only between 25 and 50 left on the island, mostly believed to be found in Sabah's dense interior forests.

Raymond Alfred, project manager for WWF-Malaysia's Asian Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy, said the footage and other photo stills would be used to determine the animals' condition.

"This is one of the greatest efforts for our project because now we can see what kind of habitat or what kind of forest condition the rhino lives in," he said.

The animal was found in a commercial forest where human activity such as logging is commonplace, but the footage will be used to convince the Sabah Government to turn the area into a rhino conservation zone.

"These rhinos could face extinction in the next 10 years if their habitat continues to be disturbed and enforcement is not in place," Alfred said.

The shy creature's population has suffered from poaching and illegal encroachment into its habitat. The rhinos are so isolated they rarely meet to breed.

The Sabah forestry department said in the statement it was trying to acquire a 200-hectare forest corridor to be secured as a rhino habitat.

It also said it was enhancing security in its part of the "heart of Borneo" where the rhino was found, a 240,000-square-kilometre area of rainforest across Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. 

AFP