The melange of India's climate and topography is reflected in its rich flora & fauna. India is world renown for its tigers, elephants and rhinoceroses, but these are just three of the more than 500 species of mammals harbouring in the country. India has for years captivated the attentions of wildlife experts and lovers. The assortment of wildlife you can see in India is truly mind-boggling, no where else you can find such a fascinating variety and numbers it boasts of.
The Himalayan belt is a botanists delight. The thick tropical forests in the eastern region of India are in sharp contrast to the pine and coniferous woodlands of the western Himalayas.
Natural cover varies with altitude; evergreen forests with mainly high alpine meadows nearer the snowline have more of temperate forests in the lower elevations.
The chir pine (Pinus roxburghii) grows throughout the northwest Himalayas, with the exception of Kashmir. Chilgoza (pine nut), oak, maple, ash (Fraxinus xanthoxyloides) grow abundantly in the Inner Himalayas.
Many Indian species are descendants of taxa originating in Gondwana, to which India originally belonged. Peninsular India's subsequent movement towards, and collision with, the Laurasian landmass set off a mass exchange of species. However, volcanism and climatic changes 20 million years ago caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms. Soon thereafter, mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographical passes on either side of the emerging Himalaya.
Consequently, among Indian species, only 12.6% of mammals and 4.5% of birds are endemic, contrasting with 45.8% of reptiles and 55.8% of amphibians. Notable endemics are the Nilgiri leaf monkey and the brown and carmine Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. India contains 172, or 2.9%, of IUCN-designated threatened species. These include the Asiatic Lion, the Bengal Tiger, and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which suffered a near-extinction from ingesting the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.
In recent decades, human encroachment has posed a threat to India's wildlife; in response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was substantially expanded. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial habitat; in addition, the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980. Along with more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries, India hosts thirteen biosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; twenty-five wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.