J. R. B. ALFRED N. K. SINHA S. CHAKRABORTY ZOOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA OCCASIONAL PAPER NO. 199 RECORDS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA CHECKLIST OF MAMMALS OF INDIA J. R. B. ALFRED N. K. SINHA* S.CHAKRABORTY Zoological Survey of India, M-B10 ck, New A lip ore, Kolkata-700053 *Zoological Survey of India, Northern Regional Station, Dehra Dun (Present Address : Joint Director, National Zoological Park, Mathura Road, New Delhi-I I0003) Zoological Survey of India Kolkata CITATION Alfred, J. R. B.; Sinha, N. K. and Chakraborty, S. 2002. Checklist of Mammels of India. Rec. zoo/. Surv. India. Dcc. Paper No. 199 : 1-289. (Published - Director, Zoo!. Surv. India, Kolkata) Published: September, 2002 ISBN 81-85874-79-4 © Government oj India, 2002 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED • No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any from or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. • This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent, resold hired out or otherwise disposed of without the publisher's consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. • The correct price of this p\Jblication is the price printed on this page. Any revised price indicated by a rubber stamp or by a sticker or by any other means is incorrect and should be unacceptable. PRICE Indian Rs. 350.00 Foreign : $(U .S.) 20, £ 15 Published at the Publication Division by the Director, Zoological Survey of India, 234/4, A. J. C. Bose Road. 2nd MSO Building (13th Floor), Nizam Palace, Kolkata - 700020 and printed at Shiva Offset, Dchradun. PREFACE India has a rich and varied heritage of biodiversity, enconlpassing a wide variety of habitats fronl tropical rainforests to alpine vegetation and tenlperate forests to coastal wetlands. Of the twenty-four hot spots identified globally, India holds two - The Western Ghats and Eastern Hinlalayas, which feature among the top eight 1110st il11portal1t hotspots. In addition, India is one of the twelve-nlega biodiversity countries of the \vorld and one of Jour in Asia. India has n10re than 89,000 species of Fauna, which is 7.2o/t) of the known Global Faunal diversity. Of the 4629 Manlnlal species known Globally, India has 397 species, which is about 9% of the world l11anlnlalian fauna. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951), Corbett and Hill (1992) and Wilson and Reeder (1993) while dealing with World Manlll1als refer to Indian lllalllll1alian fauna. Though nlany in-depth accounts of Indian Man1111als have been writtcn since thc 191h century, naillely, Blandford (1880), Lydekker (1913), Pocock (1939, 1941) and Prater (1971), there is still no conlprehensive compendiull1 on Indian Manlll1a)s. The objective of the present work is to compile an account of Indian Manlnlals in one VOlU111C and place thenl within a taxononlic fral11ework after taking into account the pertinent published studies. As far as possible all related published work on Indian Manl111als have been referred to. Moreover in the absence of recent r~visionary work on nlany groups of Indian Manlnlals, a l11ixture of prinlary and secondary sources has been consulted. The present checklist includes up to date synonymy of each species, their gcographical distribution in India and their conservation and trade status. Of the 397 Indian species 46 arc endelllic and 77 are threatened. The authors would like to place on record their gratitude to colleagues in the Zoological Survey of India and outside for their suggestions and assistance in this work. J.R.B. Alfred N.K. Sinha S. Chakraborty Septenlber, 2002 Kolkata Records of the Zoological Survey of India OCCASIONAL PAPER ~o. 199 2002 1-289 CONTENTS ,PREFACE 111 lNTRODUCTION ORGANISATION OF THE BOOK 3 CHECK LIST 4 I. Order INSECTIVORA 4 Fatnily ERINACEIDAE 4 Fatnily SORICIDAE 6 Fatnily TALPIDAE 19 2. Order SCANDENTIA 20 Fatnily TUPAIIDAE 20 3. Order CHIROPTERA 22 Suborder MEGACHIROPTERA 23 Fanlily PTEROPODIDAE 23 Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA 30 Falnily RHINOPOMATIDAE 30 Frunily ErvrnALLONURIDAE 32 Fmnily MEGADERMATIDAE 35 Fatnily RHINOLOPHIDAE 36 Fatnily VESPERTILIONIDAE 50 Fatnily MOLOSSIDAE 80 4. Order PRIMATES 82 Fatnily LORIDAE 82 Family CERCOPITHECIDAE 84 Family HYLOBATIDAE ~ 5. Order CARNIVORA ~ Family CANIDAE 91 Family FELIDAE 95 Frunily HERPESTIDAE 106 Family HYAENIDAE 110 Frunily MUSTELIDAE III Fmnily URSIDAE 120 Family VIVERRIDAE 124 6. Order CET ACEA 130 Fatnily BALAENIDAE 130 Family BALAENOPTERIDAE 131 Family DELPHINIDAE 134 Frunily PHOCOENIDAE 141 Frunily PHYSETERIDAE 142 FaJuily PLA TANISTIDAE 144 Family ZIPHIIDAE 144 7. Order SIRENIA 145 Family DUGONGIDAE 145 8. Order PROBOSCIDEA 146 Fatnily ELEPHANTIDAE 146 9. Order PERISSODACTYLA 147 Fatnily EQUIDAE 147 Fatnily RHINOCEROTIDAE 148 10. Order ARTIODACTYLA 149 Fatnily SUIDAE 149 Family TRAGULIDAE 151 Fatnily MOSCHIDAE lSI Family CERVIDAE 153 Frunily BOVIDAE 157 11. Order PHOLIDOT A 169 Fatnily MANIDAE 169 12. Order RODENTIA 171 Suborder SCIUROGNA THI 171 Family SCIURIDAE 171 Family DIPODIDAE 187 Family MURIDAE 188 Suborder HYSTRICOGNA THI 224 Family HYSTRICIDAE 224 13. Order LAGOMORPHA 226 Family OCHOTONIDAE 226 Family LEPORIDAE 229 ANNEXURE-I 232 ANNEXURE-ll 233 REFERENCES 238 INDEX 265 ALFRED et al. : Checklist of A1ammels of India INTRODUCTION About 9 percent of the total living malnmalian species of the world occur in India (Jairajpuri 1991). They are found in all types of habitats from snowy Himalayas to the plains and display all sorts of adaptation. Population of some species have become so numerous as to cause great damage of agriculture and forestry or are causativ~ agents of various diseases. On the other hand, trade, hunting and habitat destruction resulted serious d~cline in the population of many of the species and some of them have become threatened. As such adequate systematic knowledge of the Indian mammalian fauna through taxonomic, zoogeographic and biological studies is necessary so that the ways for management of the 1\vo extrelne sides may be devised. The first step towards this is to have a comprehensive idea about the species composition of the different regions. During the last century, the complete appraisal of the mammalian species of world was made by Flower (1891) and Lydekker (1891) and Trouessart (1897-1905). In the present century, dynamic and rapid changes in the knowledge of mammalian taxonomy occurred through various regional and global studies supported by expeditions and collection of fresh material. Silnpson (1945) put forwarded the Inost acceptable classification of mammals. Walker et al. (1964) brought out three volulne cOlnpendium on the mammal species of the world, which is now in fifth edition (Nowak 1991). These yolumes enumerated the species in each genus and furnished illustration of at least one member of each genus. Corbet and Hill (1980, 1986) and Honacki et al. (1982) provided world list of malnmalian species. In both the publications taxonomic revisions made by several authors have been taken into consideration. Corbet and Hill (1992) brought out an account of the mammalian fauna of the Indolnalayan region with critical review of classification, zoogeography, ecology and taxonolnic revision. Wilson and Reeder (1993) compiled a world Jist of mammalian species \vith cOlnplete taxonomic and geographical references on the basis of contribution by the specialists of different groups. Coming to the Indian scenario, one could find the description of several mammals in the "Vedas" (Rao 1957). Tenth edition of Systema Naturae (1758) by Karl von Linne provided binomial names of many Indian species. During the first three quarters of t.he nineteenth century, S. R. Tickel1, T. Horsfield, T. Hutton, E. Blyth, T. Hardwicke, J.E. Gray, S.H. Hodgson and many others made outstanding contribution to Indian mammalogy including description of a number of new species. However, consolidated account of Indian mammals was provided for the first time by Jerdon (1867) who dealt with morphology, habits and distribution. Sterndale (1884) provided a popular account of common Indian species. Blanford (1888-91) brought out systematic account of the mammal ian fauna of 2 Ree. zool. Surv. India, Oee. Paper No. 199 the Indian subcontinent with taxonomic revision. In connection with the catalogues of the mammals of Indian Museum, substantial information on the mammalian species was provided by Anderson (1881) and Sclater (1891). Knowledge about the diversity of Indian mammals has gained a momemtum chiefly through the collection made between 1911 and 1928 by the Mammal Survey of India organised by the Bombay Natural History Society. Area-wise collections were reported on by Wroughton, Ryley, Thomas, Davidson, Hinton, Mills and Fry between 1912 to 1928. These studies ushered in the modern trinomial nomenlature of Indian mammals. Wroughton (1918-1920) on examination of the survey material provided keys to the identication of various taxa. Further, these collection formed the basis of the fauna volume on Primates and Carnivora (Pocock 1939, 1941), Rodentia (Ellerman 1961), Checklist of Indian and Palaearctie mammals (El1ennan and Morrison-Scott 1951), the book on Indian animals with illustration (Prater 1980). Cabrera (1914), Ognev (1928-48), Karuda (1938), Osgood (1932), Phillips (1935), Allen (1938,40), Chasen (1940), Bobrinskii et al. (1944), Yin (1967), Lakagul and McNeely (1977), Roberts (1977), and Medway (1977, 1978) also enriched Indian mammalogy while dealing with the