Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Signature Species
If you had to pick India's most charismatic species, the list would inevitably include tigers,
elephants and rhinos, all of which are scarce and in need of stringent protection.
It's fortunate that Asian elephants - a thoroughly different species to the larger African
elephant - are revered in Hindu custom and were able to be domesticated and put to work,
otherwise they may well have been hunted into extinction long ago, as they were in neigh-
bouring China. It's true that many Indian elephants survive in the wild; however, because
elephants migrate long distances in search of food, these 3000kg animals require huge
parks and run into predictable conflict when herds of them attempt to follow ancestral paths
that are now occupied by villages and farms. One of the best parks for elephant viewing in
South India is Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka.
There are far fewer one-horned rhinos left and two-thirds (just shy of 2000) of the
world's total population can be found in Kaziranga National Park (in Assam), where they
serenely wander the park's lush alluvial grasslands at the base of the Himalayas. They may
look sedate but rhinos are unpredictably dangerous; they're built like battering rams,
covered in plates of armour-like skin and use their sharp teeth to tear off chunks of flesh
when they attack - let's just say that it's safest to watch rhinos from the back of an ele-
phant.
India's national animal is the tiger, its national bird is the peacock and its national flower is the lotus. The
national emblem of India is a column topped by three Asiatic lions.
