Wildlife Sanctuaries, National Parks, Tiger Reserve, Elephant Reserve and Biosphere Reserves in Kerala


INTRODUCTION

With a total geographic area of 38,863 sq.km. and a population of 29.10 million, Kerala is the most popular state of Indian Union with a population density of 819/sq.km.  The total forest area in the state is 10,336 sq.km. (FSI, 1995) forming 26.6% of the total geographic area and per capita forest area is 0.04 ha.  The forests of Kerala lie on the Western slope of the Western Ghats at different altitudes rising up to 2,694 metres.  The steep and often abrupt topography creates great special variations in climate and soil, resulting in high levels of biodiversity and local endemism.  The diverse physical environment of Kerala provides a diversity of habitat, each supporting an assemblage of life forms with distinct biological values.  The state possesses extensive areas of Tropical Rain Forests (1937 sq. km.), Tropical Semi-Evergreen Forests (1,543 sq. km.) and Tropical . Moist-deciduous Forests (4,100 sq.km.) and they are repositories of abundant and valuable biodiversity

The first effective step towards the conservation of wildlife and biodiversity in Kerala, was taken in 1934 by the erstwhile Travancore State by declaring the forests around the Periyar lake as Nellikkampatty Game Reserve. The following years saw the establishment of more Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks. Separate Wildlife Wing under Kerala Forest Department was created in 1985 as per GO(MS)319/84/AD dated 02.11.0984. There are at present 14 Protected Areas, One Biological Park and two Biosphere Reserve in the State. 

A total area of 2,395.4 sq.km. has been brought under Sanctuaries and National Parks in Kerala. This is 22.49% of the total forest area and 5.98% of the Geographical area of the State, which is much higher than the 4% suggested by Government of India. The details of Sanctuaries and National Parks are given below.

MAMMALS IN GENERAL

Mammals are commonly described as quadrupeds or four-legged animals. Mammals are the only animals which have mammary or milk-producing glands. In all the world of Nature they are the only animals which nourish their young with milk. It would be quite correct also to define a mammal as an ' animal with hair' as every mammal, even the seemingly hairless whales, grows hair on some part of its body at some period of its life. Finally it may be said of mammals that the great majority of them bring forth their young alive and do not produce eggs as nearly all other animals do. Those curious mammals, the duck-bills and the spiny ant-eaters, lay eggs, but when the young hatch out they are suckled by the mother in the manner of true mammals.

Diversity of structure

The varying modes of life which mammals have adopted are associated with the great diversity in structure. For there is always an intimate relationship between the structure of an animal, its mode and habits of life, and the conditions under which it lives. Adaptation to the particular kind of life which various groups of mammals chose to follow led to the evolution of that bewildering diversity in form and structure seen among mammals today, a diversity which fits them for the most varied modes of existence. Arboreal mammals exhibit grasping limbs rendering them fit to live and secure their food in trees. With parachute-like folds of skin stretched between their extended limbs, flying squirrels can glide and sail from tree to tree. The thicket cylindrical body of a mole, its enormous forefeet modified for digging, fit it especially for a life underground. Many mammals sought their food and took to a life in rivers and lakes, and some of the aquatic forms invaded the sea; among them are the whales, porpoises, and dolphins, whose fishlike bodies fit them for a marine existence almost as perfectly as fishes.

CLASSIFICATION OF MAMMALS

Classification is the grouping together of things which bear the same relationships or affinities. Mammals and other backboned animals are grouped together in one great division of the Animal Kingdom, the vertebrates. The main characters by which any mammal can be distinguished from any other vertebrate have been indicated. These characters, common to all mammals, place them in a distinct Class of the vertebrates, the Mammalia. Differences in the methods which they follow in caring for their young enable the sub-classification of mammals into three groups:

The egg-laying mammals or Monotremes

Pouched mammals or Marsupials

The placental mammals

These groups are again divisible on the basis of relationships and affinities into Orders, Families, Genera, and Species. All rodents have chisel-shaped incisor teeth. United in this character they form a natural Order, the Rodentia. In the same way a distinctive dentition enables us to place all beasts of prey in another natural Order, the Carnivora, and all insect-eaters in yet another, the Insectivora. Squirrels have certain family resemblances, which distinguish them from rats and mice, and these again have common family characters which distinguish them from porcupines. The sub-Order containing all these animals is therefore separable into distinct tribes or families. . The young are guarded and watched over, food is foraged for them, and such care may be extended to training in methods of hunting, in avoidance of enemies, and in other acquirements which make for successful living. It has been shown that in the struggle for existence mammals have gained supremacy over all other animals. Their superior brains have enabled them immensely to widen means and opportunities of securing their food, while a diversity of structure equalled by no other class of animals fits them to obtain it in a variety of ways. Their mental and physical equipment again gives them ascendancy in ways and means of protecting themselves and their young against whatever may be adverse in their surroundings. Life is expressed on this earth in a myriad forms; it attains its highest expression in mammals and it is the most perfect in man, the highest of mammals whose kingdom is all the Earth.

Fauna (Mammals) grouped under the following 

Apes, Monkeys and Lemurs 
The Cats 
Civets 
Mongooses 
Hyenas 
The Dog Family (Canidae) 
Bears 
Insectivores 
Bats
Rodents 
Hares, Mouse-Hares 
The Goats 
Goat-Antelopes 
Marine Mammals 
Endangered Mammals 

1. APES, MONKEYS AND LEMURS

All the animals coming under this order of Primates have many of the same structural characters as man. The ascendancy of the primates is mental. It is derived form a superior development of brain and the higher intelligence which goes with it. There are two main divisions of primates. One includes man, apes and monkeys and the other includes lemurs and there kins. None of the great man-like apes are found in India. The only tribe of apes inhabiting our country are the gibbons of which a single species, the hoolock of is found in India.

THE BONNET MACAQUE (Macaca radiata)

Local Name: Vellamanthi 

HANUMAN LANGUR

Distinctive Characters:- A medium-sized, long-tailed macaque. A bonnet of long dark hairs radiates in all directions from a whorl on its Crown. The bonnet does not quite cover the forehead, where the hairs are short and neatly parted in the centre.

Habits:- This is a little pale-faced monkey commonly seen with strolling showmen in southern India, where it is the counterpart of the northern rhesus. It is the common species in village and jungle, both in the foothills and in the plains. Troops of as many as 20 or 30 animals may be found feeding on the ground or in the trees. It is more arboreal in habit than most macaques, hence its longer tail. Bonnet Macaques eat anything eatable, fruits, berries, leaves and shoots, also insects, grubs, and spiders.


THE NILGIRI LANGUR (Trachypithecus johnii)

Local Name: Karimkurangu

Distinctive Characters:- A glossy black or blackish-brown langur with a yellowish-brown head. The rump and base of tail may be grizzled. Females distinguished by the presence of a white patch of hair seen on the inside of the thighs, seen even in 10 day old infants. Young, reddish brown until 10 weeks of age, then jet black. The Nilgiri Langur is endemic to the Western Ghats.

Habit:- In the south Indian hill ranges the favourite haunts of these langurs are the sholas or stretches of dense evergreen forest which usually mark the nallahs (small streams) and watercourses on their grass covered slopes. They are not confined to forest and may invade gardens and belts of cultivated woodlands.

Nilgiri Langur troops vary in size from 3 to 25 averaging at 8 to 9 animals per troop. Troop organisation is on the basis of a single male leader, with an adult sex ratio of 1.2 female to I male. Males are occasionally to be seen by themselves, either alone or with other males. There is little antagonism among the social elements. The home range of troops varies in size from 0.65 to 2.6 sq. km. There is apparently a distinct breeding season with a peak birth period in June and a subsidiary season in September.

THE SLENDER LORIS (Loris tardigrata) 

Local Name: Kuttithevanku

Distinctive Characters:- Much like the Slow Loris in form, but less pleasing because of its lean and lanky appearance. The limbs are longer and more slender, the ears larger, the snout more pointed; the eyes more close-set. The fur is less dense, yet soft and woolly. Its colour varies from dark grey to earthy brown with an embellishment of silvery hairs, the lower parts always much paler. The dark spinal stripe is never strongly pronounced and is sometimes absent. Eyes, circled with black or dark brown. Muzzle, white.




Habit:- The Slender Loris has the same secretive and nocturnal habits as the Slow Loris, but it is not confined to dense forest, and is found equally in open tree jungle. It does not keep exclusively to the trees, but comes down into bushes to feed, and most often cross open stretches of ground to enter isolated groves or to cross from one tree to another. It sleep by day, hidden among foliage or in a hole or crevice, and start its rambles at dusk.

STRUCTURE IN RELATION TO HABITS

Senses:- The hunting of other animals as a means of livelihood requires high intelligence, and beasts of prey as a whole display an intelligence and brain development surpassed only by man and the higher apes.  Hearing, vision, scent, all the higher senses, are highly developed in carnivores, particularly in those tribes, which live habitually by hunting, such as the cats.  The tufts of bristles seen in the cats are sensory tactile organs.  Its large upstanding ears are well adapted to pick up airborne sounds, and its sense of direction in respect to sounds heard is extraordinarily accurate.  As for eyes, Cats have the largest eyes of all carnivores.

The Cats

The housecat and the lion, the tiger, and the leopard, cats great or small, are members of one family, the Felidae, the foremost of all the Carnivores or beasts of prey. There are beasts of prey whose teeth are not expressly suited to a diet of meat. Those characters which mark the perfect carnivore, claws especially adapted to strike and hold struggling prey, and teeth especially designed to bite into, cut up, and tear flesh, are most perfectly developed in the cats. Among carnivores, cats stand supreme in equipment of tooth and claw, and highest again in that combination of grace, strength, and ability, which is the mark of the tribe. An excelling fitness for a predatory life is seen in the perfect adaptation of the whole being and structure of a cat to the swift capture, killing and eating of living prey.

Civets

Civets, Palm Civets, Linsangs and Bear-Cats, a diverse assemblage of animals, are grouped in a single family, the Viverridae. The nearest of the family are the Cats (Felidae). While Cats and Civets show certain resemblances in structure, they differ in many ways. No one could mistake a civet for a cat. A civet is long in body and short in limb. It has an elongate head and pointed muzzle, quite distinct from the long limbs, rounded head, and flattened muscle of a Cat. Different habits of life account for these differences in structure. Cats live wholly by hunting. Civets do not, many live partly or even mainly on vegetable food. As such the whole build of a civet shows a lesser degree of fitness for a predatory life. Contrasted with the short, sturdy jaws of a cat which are specially designed for gripping struggling prey, the jaws of civets are long and slender, their canine teeth are comparatively feeble, and their shorter claws less powerful. Yet, though less well equipped as beasts of prey, these animals are well fitted for their particular ways of earning a livelihood.

THE SMALL INDIAN CIVET (Viverricula indica)

A second species of large civet, the Malabar Civet (V.megaspila) was once very common in the coastal districts of Malabar and Travancore. It lived in the wooded plains and in the adjoining hill slopes. But at the present time, it is scarcely seen and appears to be nearing extinction.

Distinctive characters:- A tawny grey or grayish brown animal, lined and streaked on back and croup; spotted more or less in rows along the flanks. There are usually some cross bars on the neck. Typically civet-like in build, the absence of the dorsal crest distinguishes it from the Large Indian Civet.

Distribution:- The Peninsular of India

Habits: Dry or moist conditions make no difference to the choice of habitat of this civet, but is keeps out of heavy forest and prefers long grass or scrub to live in. It shelters in holes or under rocks or lies up in grass or under bushes. Like other civets, its usual habit is to hunt by night. Though it climbs well and can scale a vertical trunk with ease, it seeks its food on the ground, preying on rats, squirrels, small birds, lizards, insects and their grubs, on anything which it can catch and kill. The young are born at all seasons and are usually produced in holes in trees or under a shelter of rocks. The usual litter is from three to four.

A second species, the Brown Palm Civet (P.jerdoni. Blanford) is found in North Kanara and the hill ranges of South India. A shy forest animal, rarely entering houses, it is distinctive in its rich deep brown colouring. Its general habits are similar to those of the Jerdoni Blanford and caniscus Pocock. They attain sexual maturity at about 11 months.

Mongooses

Our common Mongoose, so frequently exhibited by wandering snake charmers, is familiar to most people in India. The ears of a mongoose are more or less semi-circular in shape, and so small that they never project above its head or nape. Then, civets have short-clawed compact feet. The feet of a mongoose play out more, the digits are freer, and the claws are long, sometimes very long. Again the mongooses have no perfume glands. Except for the linsangs, all civets have them. Like civets, all mongooses have anal glands; but the anus in these animals is enclosed in a naked glandular sac, a thing not seen in civets. Lastly, there is a difference in habits. Mongooses as a family are more predatory than civets. They live mainly by hunting, while most civets have taken largely to a vegetable diet.

THE COMMON MONGOOSE (Herpestes edwardsii)

Local names Kan, Keeree;

Distinctive Characters: A tawny yellowish-grey mongoose with no stripe on the side of its neck. The alternate light and dark rings on its hairs gives its coat a grizzled ‘pepper and salt’ tinge. The tail, which is as long as its body, is tipped with white or yellowish-red, never black.

Distribution: Throughout of India from the Himalayan foothills to Cape Comorin.

Habits: This is not a creature of forest, but of open lands and of scrub jungle. It lives in hedgerows and thickets, among groves of trees and cultivated fields, taking shelter under rocks or bushes, lying up in a hollow in the base of a tree trunk, or digging a hole for itself in the ground. Those living in the deserts usually take shelter in deep burrows to escape the heat. Termite mounds are sometimes occupied. Like most carnivores, mongooses eat carrion and are frequently seen taking a share of the kills of large animals. The Common Mongoose breeds all the year round and three litters may be produced in a year. The period of gestation is about 60 days.

THE SMALL INDIAN MONGOOSE (Herpestes auropunctatus)

Distinctive Characters: Its smaller size, shorter tail (shorter than the body), its olive-brown, gold-flecked, soft silky fur are distinctive. Two races are recognized in India. The desert form (pallipes) is distinctive in its pale general colouring. The animals in the more fertile parts of N.India (auropunctatus) are darker brown and minutely specked with gold.

Distribution: Northern India form Kashmir extending eastwards

Habits: The Small India Mongoose lives in holes burrowed by itself. It is diurinal in habit and is seen hunting its food about bushes, hedges and in cultivated fields. It is a cautious creature generally keeping to cover. Its presence can usually be detected by the worn tracks it leaves along the hedges. It uses the same path day after day. It feeds on anything it can kill, on rats, mice, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, wasps and insects of all kinds.

THE STRIPED NECKED MONGOOSE (Herpestes vitticollis)

Local Name: Chenkeeri

Distribution: The Western Ghats from North Kanara, southwards to some of the adjoining S.Indian hill ranges and Ceylon.

Habits: This mongoose is typically a forest animal and is less commonly seen around human habitation, though it enters cultivation and is frequently seen hunting its food in rice-fields. Little is known of its breeding habits. A second species of mongoose, the Brown Mongoose is found in the forests of the south Indian hill ranges at 3000-6000 ft. It is a large, heavily built, blackish brown mongoose, more or less speckled with yellow or tawny. Paws almost black. The species is fairly common around coffee plantations.

Hyenas

The build and general appearance of a hyena suggest its relationship with the Dog family. Its legs and feet are typically those of a dog; but the structure of the skull, the teeth, and other points in the anatomy of the animal definitely place it in the Felid or Cat section of the Carnivora. A hyena carries a broad head with large, pointed, upstanding ears. While its forelimbs are sturdy and long, its deep and massive body ends in weak drooping hindquarters supported on short knock-kneed hind legs. Te animal walks on its toes. There are four on each foot. The claws are short and blunt. They have no protective sheaths and are non-retractile. Hyenas have no scent glands, but are provided with anal glands contained in a large sac hung above the anus.

THE STRIPED HYENA (Hyaena hyaena)

Local Name: Kazhuthapuli

Distinctive characters: A dog-like build, massive head and fore-body, weak hindquarters, and a heavy dorsal crest of long hairs, sharply defined from the rest of the coat, distinguish the hyena. Its color varies from cream, buff, or tawny to the grey or dirty white of the harsh scanty summer coat. Transverse stripes on body and limbs usually well defined, less so in the full winter coat. 

Distribution: All over India.

Habits: The hyena is rare in forested districts, abundance in open country, especially where low hills and ravines offer convenient holes and caves for shelter. Many lie concealed by day in high grass, under bushes, or in cane fields, but the den usually preferred is a cave amongst rocks, or a hole dug in, the side of a hill or ravine. Quite often a hyena enlarges a porcupines burrow to suit its needs. They come out in quest of food by night, retiring before sunrise.


The Dog Family (Canidae)

As mans companion and friend, the dog has made us familiar with many of the characters and ways of its family. Wolves, Jackals and Foxes, Dogs domestic and wild, together compose this family, the Canidae. All these animals have a strong family likeness. They are built on the same general plan, a well-shaped head, long pointed muscle, large erect ears, deep-chested muscular body, bushy tail and slender, sinewy limbs. Their perfectly digitigrade feet have blunt, nearly straight, and non-retractile claws. The custom of most of the family is to secure prey by swift and open chase. How perfectly Dogs are fitted to do this becomes clearer, when we consider just how these animals find, pursue, kill, and eat their prey.

THE JACKAL (Canis aureus)

Local Name: Kurukkan

Distinctive Characters: The Jackal’s long-drawn, eerie howling at dusk or just before dawn is perhaps more familiar to most people than the animal itself. Its nearest wild relative is the wolf, but the Jackal is smaller in build and meaner in aspect. It lacks the arching brows and elevated forehead which give the wolf its nobler profile. Coat, variable with season and locality. Typically, a mixture of black and white washed with buff about the shoulders, ears, and legs. Himalayan animals have more buff on their coats and a deeper than on ears and legs. Black variants are not uncommon in north India.

Distribution: Through out India

THE INDIAN FOX (Vulpes bengalensis)

Distinctive characters: This is the common fox of the Indian plains, a pretty, slender-limbed animal, smaller and slimmer in build than the Red Fox; distinctive in the black tip to its tail. The backs of its ears are generally of the same tone as the head and nape, never jet-black and strongly contrasted as in the Red Fox. While northern animals grow a handsome winter coat, it is not as long and luxuriant as the winter pelt of the Red Fox. Its general colour is grey, purer grey in winter, contrasting with the rufous limbs.

Distribution: The whole of India

Habits: The Indian Fox keeps to open country and rarely enters forest. It is common in the waste and scrub of our desert zone, but not in true desert. Many live in cultivated lands, bordering irrigation channels. Much the same is the habitat in the rest of India, waste and cultivation, rocky hills and broken country.

Bears

Judging from appearances one would scarcely suspect that there is a relationship between bears and dogs. Different modes of life adopted by their remote ancestors led to the development of those differences in structure now so apparent in the two families. The progenitors of bears chose a different way of life. They probably lived as bears live now, on grasses, roots, herbs, fruit and insects, eating meat only when opportunity offered. The getting of such food did not require swift and agile movement, but rather legs built for climbing and digging. Hence the bear’s massive limbs, which carry its heavy body up rocks and cliffs and trees. Its in-turned paws which secure a better hold on branch or trunk, and its great claws which help it to climb and dig.

THE SLOTH BEAR (Melursus ursinus)

Local Name: Puni Karadi

Distinctive characters: With its elongated muzzle and lower lip, long hair and short hind legs, this is the most uncouth of all bears. Most have a whitish V-shaped breast patch, and usually the muzzle and the tips of the feet are dirty white or yellowish. The claws, always longer on the forefeet, are ivory white. The coat may have a brownish tinge, more rarely it is wholly brown.

Distribution: The forested tracts of India

Habits: Sloth bears live where there is sufficient forest to provide food, and favour places where outcroppings of rock and tumbled boulders offer them shelter during the hot weather and the rains. They come out shortly before sunset, hunt for food all night, and retire in the morning. Their food consists mainly of fruit and insects, but a hungry Sloth Bear may be driven to eat carrion. To get sufficient food to support their bulky bodies Sloth Bears walk much work hard. What they eat depends upon locality and season.


Insectivores

The Natural Order, the Insectivora or insect-eating mammals, contains the tree shrews, hedgehogs, moles, ground shrews, etc. These animals follow and are adapted to varied modes of life, the tree shrews to climbing, moles to living and finding their food under ground, while hedgehogs, and ground shrews seek their food on its surface. With these varying habits there is naturally great diversity of form and structure among these animals, hence it is difficult to frame a common definition by which all the members of the tribe can be recognized.

Generally it may be said that none of the Insectivora are large animals. Except for the tree shrews, all are nocturnal in their habits. A characteristic feature, very pronounced in almost all of them, is a long, pointed snout projecting far beyond the lower jaw, at times it is almost a probosois. The limbs are as a rule short and five-toed, and their gait is more or less plantigrade.

TREE SHREWS, OR TUPAIAS (Anathana ellioti)

Distinctive Characters: - In appearance a tree shrew is combination of shrew and squirrel. Its long snout is shrew-like, but its rounded ears, body, limbs, and tail suggest a squirrel. The feet again are like a squirrel’s, well fitted for climbing, the soles naked, the toes long and supple, the claws sharp and moderately curved. The Malay Tree Shrew is grizzled brown or ferrugineous above, its throat and under parts huffy. The Malay Tree Shrew is grizzled brown or ferrugineous above, its throat and under parts huffy. The Indian Tree Shrew is similar in colouring but its throat and breast are nearly white.

Distribution: - The Indian Tree Shrew is found both in the dry and moist decidous forests of peninsular India.

Habits:- The name tree shrew gives a wrong impression of the true habits of these animals. Though expert climbers, tree shrews take to trees mainly as a means of escape or as a shelter. Most of their food they seek on the ground, noising for it among fallen leaves, under rocks, or in crevices, or climbing for it in and out of the under growth.


BATS

Bats (CHIIROPTERRA) are perhaps the most easily recognizable group of animals. A bat is the only mammal with wings, the only mammal which can really fly. There are mammals, like flying squirrels and flying lemurs, which glide through the air supported by parachute like extensions of skin from their bodies. But such a parachute does little more than prolong the squirrel’s leap and reduce the impetus of its landing; whereas with bats there is true and sustained flight effected by an upward and downward beat of wings. It is believed that bats are derived from some form of tree-dwelling, leaping, insectivorous animal. Bats are classified in two main groups: Mega chiroptera including all the frugivorons bats, and Microchiroptera all the insect eating and carnivorous species. The name Mega chiroptera meaning ’ large bats ‘ refers to the size of the fruit bats. Some like the Flying Foxes (Pteropus) have a wingspan of quite 4 ft. It is true that insectivorous bats are generally smaller. None of them attain the size of Flying Foxes, but some are as big as or even bigger than some fruit-eating bats.

FLYING FOX (Pteropus giganteus)

Local Names: - Vowval.

Distinctive Characters: - The large size of this bat makes it easily identifiable. Head usually reddish brown with a darker, sometimes blackish, snout. Hind neck and shoulders pale brownish, yellow to straw; behind shoulders dark brown or black. Ventrally yellowish brown. Chin, neck, vent and flanks darker. Wings black.

Distribution: - All over India.

Habits: - The largest of Indian bats, usually seen flying with slow wing beats at dusk. Roosts during the day in large, noisy, squabbling colonies on trees, often in the midst of busy towns and villages. Creatures of habit, the bats usually leave the roost within half an hour of sunset, flying the same route regularly in single file for considerable distances which may include crossing substantial arms of the sea.

FULVOUS FRUIT-BAT (Rousettus leschenault): -

Distinctive Characters:- Medium sized bat, uniformly light brown, occasionally yellowish in colour. Older males with dull grey flanks. Completely hairless individuals may be seen during the spring and summer months. The bats have an odour like that of fermented fruit.

Distribution: - Indian peninsula and South-east Asia.


Habits: - Gregarious while roosting. Roosts in noisy colonies of 10 to 2000 in caves and man made structures such as tunnels, rock cut caves, wells, and rooms in old ruins, not necessarily dark. If disturbed may move elsewhere. There is also movement between different roosting sites depending on the availability of food in the surrounding country. The mating season is probably between November and March. Two discrete birth seasons, one in March and the second in August, are reported. The mother carries the young, pink and naked at birth, for two months during her nocturnal flights. The adult size is reached after one year.

SHORT-NOSED FRUIT BAT (Cynopterus sphinx)

Distinctive Characters: - The white margined, nearly naked ears and divergent nostrils are distinctive. Brown of varying tints, ferruginous or yellowish or dull grey brown in colour. Males often with a bright reddish brown or rusty brown collar.

Distribution: - Peninsular India and South-east Asia.

Habits: - A common species but not as easily seen as the Flying Fox and Fulvous Fruit-bat as it roosts singly or in small groups among palm leaves, aerial roots of banyan, tree hollows, and similar situations, and only exceptionally in ruins and caves. Leaves quite early in the evening for foraging, flying to fruit bearing trees or to sip honey from flowers, flitting from flower to flower without setting. Often flies off with ripe fruit to roost and eat at leisure. Its usefulness as a cross pollinator and seed dispersal agent is perhaps offset by its destructiveness in orchards. Information on breeding habits is scanty.

Distinctive Characters: - Male sandy yellowish-grey with a black beard of long and thick hairs. Female brown with reddish tint. Young, dull dark grey, the males growing a beard after five or six months of age. During rut the beard is trenched by a thick secreting produced by small glands under the chin.

Distribution: - Gregarious, living in colonies varying in numbers from 150 to 4000. Original habitat rock clefts, now largely ruins and underground temples. The same haunts are occupied throughout the year. The bats do not hang by their hind limbs but cling to the walls and ceilings by all four limbs and move with facility in all directions when disturbed. Sexes not usually segregated, but the males stay on the periphery of the colony. The bats fly out to feed about half an hour after sunset in batches of three to a dozen. Lactating females leave about a quarter hour earlier than the males. The flight is swift. Feeds on insects.

Rodents

Squirrels, marmots & mice, porcupines, and their kinsfolk are classified as Rodentia, the rodents or gnawing animals. Both in species and in numbers this is quite the largest single group of mammals. There are more than a thousand different species or rodents, many of them swarming in vast hordes. They are all comparatively small animals, earning a livelihood in diverse ways. Some live on the surface of the ground, others below it, some in trees, and some in water. With such diversity in habits and modes of life, rodents naturally display great diversity of form and structure. But there is one character by which any rodent can be distinguished from all other mammals, viz. its teeth. Their distinctive structure is associated with their food and the way in which they eat it.


GIANT SQUIRRELS


Distinctive Characters: - All the Indian squirrels of these dimensions belong to a single genus Ratufa the Indian Giant Squirrel (Ratufa indica). Three species are described from our limits. The Indian Giant Squirrel (R.indica) inhabits the deciduous, mixed deciduous, and moist evergreen forests of peninsular India.

Habits: - Giant Squirrels live only in forests. They keep to the summits of the higher trees, and seldom if ever come to ground. They move from tree to tree taking amazing leaps with limbs outspread, covering as much as twenty feet in a single bound. They are active and agile animals, most active in the early hours of the morning and in the evening. As with most animals, midday is a time of rest. It is not unusual at this time to see one of these squirrels sleeping spread-eagled on a branch, its long tail drooping over the side. Or the animal takes rest in its nest, especially if the weather is cold or wet. The Indian Giant Squirrel usually lives alone, or in pairs. These animals build large globular nests of twigs and leaves, placing them for greater security among the slimmer twigs and branches of trees.

Distinctive Characters: - All the Indian squirrel of these dimensions belongs to a single genus Ratufa. Three species are described from our limits. The Indian Giant Squirrels (R.indica) inhabits the decidous, mixed deciduous, and moist evergreen forests of peninsular India south of the Ganges; a number of local races have been described. In some hill ranges of South India and in Ceylon there is a second species, the Grizzled Giant Squirrel (R.macroura). It is distinctive in having the dorsal surface and tail grey or brownish grey, more or less grizzled with white. North of the Ganges in Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Assam there is a third form. This is the Malayan Giant Squirrel (R.bicolor). It has a deep brown almost black coat with buff’ coloured under parts.

Habits: - Giant Squirrels live only in forests. They keep to the summits of the higher trees, and seldom if ever come to ground. They move from tree to tree taking amazing leaps with limbs most active in the early hours of the morning and in the evening. As with most animals, midday is a time of rest. It is not unusual at this time to see one of these squirrels sleeping spread-eagled on a branch, its long tail drooping over the side. Or the animal takes its siesta in its nest, especially if the weather is cold or wet. They are shy, wary animals not easy to discover. Despite its brilliant colouring the Indian Giant Squirrel is sooner heard than seen. Its loud rattling call, oft repeated, usually reveals its presence. The Indian Giant Squirrel usually lives alone, or in pairs. These animals build large globular nests of twigs and leaves, placing them for greater security among the slimmer twigs and branches of trees.

Hares, Mouse-Hares

The order Lagomorpha comprises two families, the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotmidae (mouse-hares). These families, formerly classed as a subdivision of the rodents, the Duplicidenta, can be distinguished from the rodents by having four incisors in the upper jaw instead of two, a large anterior pair and a smaller pair behind them. The skull is distinctive, and young bulls and cows. Old bulls are jet black, their bodies almost hairless. An ashy forehead and yellowish/white-stockinged feet complete the livery. The Gaur has no white patch behind the thighs, a character well marked in the tsaine. The colours of the eyes are brown. In certain lights, as a result of reflection, they appear blue.
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GOAT-ANTELOPES


THE GOAT ANTELOPES, a general name for Serow, Goral, and Takin, form the third division of the Bovidae, which is known as the Rupicaprinae. They are said to hold an intermediate position between ‘ goats ‘ on the one side and that heterogeneous assemblage of animals on the other which is collectively known as ‘ antelopes’. All of them are mountain animals. Most have a more or less goat-like build, goat-like teeth, and short tails. Relatively small cylindrical horns are present in both sexes. The group also includes the Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), the type from which the name of the group is derived, and the Rocky Mountain Goat.

DEER

The general structure of deer is in conformity with the structure of Bovine ruminants. Among the points of distinction is a large fissure or opening in the skull below each eye called the lachrymal fissure Tushes or canine teeth are usually present in the upper jaw and, since these teeth always develop in deer, they offer a ready means of distinction from the ox family, none of which have upper tushes or canines. Moreover, with the single exception of the musk deer, no member of the group has a gall bladder so constantly present in the Bovidae. The lateral digits on all four feet are more fully developed than in the Bovidae. But the most pronounced difference is to be seen in the character of the horns. Deer are ruminants with solid horns. This character alone is sufficient to distinguish them from the Bovidae. The horns of oxen, of sheep, goats, and antelopes consist of two parts, a hollow sheath or outer cover of horn and a core of bone. A deer’s antlers, except for a temporary covering of skin during growth, are nothing but solid bone. Again, with the Bovidae the horns are permanent; deer on the other hand shed and regrow their antlers periodically.
THE NILGIRI TAHR (Hemitragus hylocrius)

Local Name: - Varayadu

Distinctive Characters: - The Nilgiri Tahr is a near relative of the Himalayan species. Its short crisp coat, the rounded outer surface of its horns, and presence of only a single pair of teats are distinguishing characters. The general colour of the animal is a dark yellowish brown, paler on the undersurface. Does and young bucks are grey. With age the bucks get a very deep brown, almost black, coat with a distinctive light ‘ saddle patch’ on the lions. From a distance the saddle looks almost white. In build, bucks are far heavier and stockier that the does. The horns, almost is contact at the base, rise parallel for some length, then diverge and curve downwards in a bold sweep. They are deeply wrinkled. The knotted keel in front, so distinctive in the horns of the Himalayan Tahr, is absent.

Distribution: - From the Nilgiris to the Anaimalais and tends southwards along the Western Ghats at elevations from 4000 to 6000 ft.

Habitats: The preferred habitat of Tahr in the Nilgiris is the scarps and crags, which rise above forest level. Occasionally Tahr gram in those grazing upland downs so characteristic of the south Indian hills. Like all goats they associate in flocks of half a dozen or more animals, which may at times assemble to form much larger herds. They graze early in the mornings and again in the late afternoons. During the hottest hours of the day Tahr retire to rest in the shelter of the crags and rocks. In a census taken by the Nilgiri Wildlife Association in May 1975 as many as 334 animals were seen and the total number on the Nilgiri plateau was estimated as atleast 450. As to the main rutting season there is nothing recorded. The old bucks desert the herds during the hot weather and at this time, more often than not, are found solitary. Kids are seen with the herds in most months of the year. Sometimes two are produced at a birth, but one is more usual. The majorities are born at the commencement of the hot weather.


SAMBAR (Cervis unicolor)

Local Names: Kullay marn

Distinctive Characters: The typical forest deer of south-eastern Asia. The coat is coarse and shaggy. In stags it forms a mane about the neck and throat. In the hot weather much of the hair is shed. The general colour is brown with a yellowish or grayish tinge. The under parts are paler. Females are lighter in tone.

Distribution: The wooded districts of India.

Habits: Forested hill-sides, preferably near cultivation, are the favourite haunt of the Sambar. Their food consists of grass, leaves, and various kinds of wild fruit. They feed mainly at night and retire into heavy cover at daybreak and do not usually come out till dusk. Their powers of sight are moderate, their scent and hearing acute. The capacity of so heavy an animal to move silently through dense jungle is amazing. Sambar takes to water readily and swim with the body submerged. Only the face and the antlers showing above the surface.

THE CHITAL, or SPOTTED DEER (Axis axis)
Local Name: Pulli marn
Distinctive Characters: - The Chital is perhaps the most beautiful of all deer. Its coat is a bright rufous-fawn profusely spotted with white at all ages and in all seasons. Old bucks are more brownish in colour and darker. The lower series of spots on the flanks are arranged in longitudinal rows and suggest broken linear markings. The graceful antlers have three tines, a long brow tine set nearly at right angles to the beam and two branch tines at the top. The outer tine, the continuation of the beam, is always longer. It may be noted that old bucks often have one or more false points on the brow antler where it joins the main beam.
Distribution: In India Chital are found in the forests at the base of the Himalayas and practically throughout the Peninsula Habits. One always associates Chital with beautiful scenery, with grassy forest glades and shaded streams. They are seen in herds of ten to thirty, which may contain two or three stags; but assemblages numbering several hundreds have been met with.
THE INDIAN CHEVROTAIN, OR MOUSE-DEER (Tragulus merninna)
Distinctive Characters: - The cloven-hoofed animals, which we have considered so far all belong to the Pecora, an infra-order of Ruminantia (Ruminants). The Mouse-Deer represents a second infra-order the Tragulina. Like other ruminants, Mouse-Deer have no front teeth in the upper jaw. But they differ in having a three-chambered stomach in place of one with four divisions. They have four well-developed toes on each foot, the bones of the petty or side toes being complete. In other ruminants some of these bones are imperfect and wanting. Antlers are not developed. Mouse-Deer, like musk deer, are furnished with tusks. These are better developed in males.
Marine Mammals
THE CETACEA (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), Sirenia (sea-cows), and Pinnipedia (seals, sea-lions, and walruses) represent the main groups of marine mammals. Of these the Pinnipedia are not found in the Indian seas.
The phylogenetic relationships of present-day marine mammals have given rise to much speculation but it is now accepted that their ancestors are to be sought among the first land mammals. Whereas the fishes have evolved from primitive aquatic ancestors and are perfectly adapted for life in water, the lung-breathing arrangements the marine mammals have inherited from their progenitors do not render them fully adapted. The Cetacea, regarded by some as the closest relatives of the earliest mammals, have become highly specialized for life in an aquatic medium. Various gradations of secondary adaptations to the aquatic environment can be traced. Marine mammals thus offer an excellent instance of convergent adaptations in different groups resulting from a similar mode of life.
THE DUGONG, or SEA-COW (Dugong dugon)

Local Name: - Kaddapanni

Distinctive Characters: - In general body form the Dugong resembles more the Eared Seals than the Cetaceans. The belly is more or less flat while the back and sides are rounded. The neck is absent and the head, which is massive, is somewhat truncate anteriorly. The tail flukes are horizontally placed and a thickened fold of the skin is seen extending dorsally from about the commencement of the tail to its tip. The forelimbs are flattened flipper like and the mammae are situated just behind them almost in a line with their posterior edges. The mouth of the animal is small and the upper lip projects considerably beyond the lower lip and is in the form of an extensive horse shoe-shaped fleshy pad overhanging the mouth.

Distribution: - The shores of the Indian Ocean between 220 50 N. and 180 S.

Habits:- The animal is clumsy and sluggish in its habits and not particularly adapted for rapid motion. At one time it was very abundant in the Gulf of Manaar. In fact, there existed a Dugong ‘ fishery ‘ of some importance in the Gulf of Manaar, as the flesh of the animal is highly esteemed by the local people and special nets were used to capture the animals while they were in their feeding grounds.