HYDERABAD: Coinciding inciding with the 109th foundation day of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched a checklist of the country’s fauna covering 1,04,561 species.
Environment minister Bhupender Yadav said that India has become the first country in the world to achieve this feat. The Fauna of India checklist portal is made up of 121 checklists of all known taxa (hierarchical divisions of species) covering 36 phyla.
Endemic, threatened and scheduled species have been included in the list. As per the checklist, Telangana accounts for 59 of the 455 mammal species in the country. Of this, five are endemic to the state.
The checklist states that 439 bird species have been reported in Telangana, with 11 of them being endemic to the state. Noting that birds act as indicators of environmental health, the document stated that birds hold important ecological roles as pollinators, seed dispersers, predators, prey and providers of ecosystem services such as pest control, nutrient cycling, and scavenging.
The Zoological Survey of India estimated that India has 778 species of reptiles — 426 of them are endemic to the country — including subspecies.
While 66 of these species can be found in Telangana, four of these reptile species are endemic to the state.
However, as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Assessment, of the total number of reptile species, one has been classified as Endangered, three has been classified as Vulnerable and six as Near Threatened.
Farida Tampal, state director of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) - Hyderabad office, said that Zoological Survey of India’s lists are an authentic source for stakeholders.