Indian Fauna Checklist Portal

Reference

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has launched a portal in Kolkata documenting the entire fauna species of India.

Key points related to the portal

• The portal has been launched on the occasion of the 109th Foundation Day of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).
• The name of this portal is 'Fauna of India Checklist Portal'.
• This list portal is the first comprehensive document on faunal species reported from India.
• India has become the first country in the world to prepare a checklist of its entire fauna covering 104,561 species.
• This catalogue contains 121 checklists of all known taxa, comprising or covering 36 phyla.

Status of listed species

• This list also includes local, endangered and other species. According to this list, about 455 mammalian species have been recorded in India.
  • Of these, the highest number of species are found in Meghalaya (163 species), West Bengal (161), Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Sikkim and Kerala.
  • Among the Union Territories, Andaman and Nicobar Islands (68 species), Ladakh and Delhi have the highest mammalian diversity.
  • Of the 52 mammalian species endemic to India, Tamil Nadu (23 species), Karnataka and Kerala have high prevalence.
• Three species, Anathanana, Latidens and Nilgiritragus are monotypic and found only in India.
• Of the 1,358 bird species found in India, 79 are endemic, meaning they are not found anywhere else in the world.
• The Western Ghats biogeographic region has the highest number of species (28), while the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the next highest in terms of endemism.

Other major activities

• During this period, Animal Classification Summit-2024 was also organized which is the second summit to be organized by ZSI.
• Along with this, ZSI’s prestigious publication ‘Animal Discovery-2023’ was also released, which includes 641 new animal species and new records from India.
  • Kerala tops the list of new discoveries, followed by West Bengal.
• Apart from this, 'Botanical Discovery-2023' of Botanical Survey of India (BSI) was also released, which includes 339 new plant species and new records from the country.
• On this occasion, the first ‘Barcode Atlas of Indian Fishes’ jointly published by Lucknow-based ICAR-NBFGR and ZSI and the book ‘ROAR- Celebrating 50 Years of Project Tiger’ written by Shiladitya Chaudhary and Ketan Sengupta were also released.