Representational image.

Celebrating the 109th Foundation Day of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in Kolkata, India, recently, Indian Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav launched the “Fauna of India Checklist Portal”.

On the occasion, Mr Yadav said India is the first country to prepare such a checklist encompassing over 100,000 species and will position the country as a global leader in biodiversity documentation. He added that the faunal checklist will be an invaluable reference for taxonomists, academicians, researchers, conservation managers and policymakers. The document comprises 121 checklists of all known taxa, covering 36 phyla. The list also includes endemic, threatened and scheduled species.

Out of 455 mammalian species recorded from India, Meghalaya (163 species), West Bengal (161 species), Arunachal Pradesh (142 species), Tamil Nadu (139 species), Assam (138 species), Sikkim (137 species) and Kerala (134 species) are having the maximum number of species; the highest mammalian diversity of the Union Territories are Andaman & Nicobar Islands (68 species), Ladakh (59 species) and Delhi (38 species). Out of 52 endemic mammal species in India, Tamil Nadu (23 species), Karnataka (19 species) and Kerala (19 species) have high numbers of endemic species in the country, according to the checklist.

High endemism is reported from the Western Ghats hill streams of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Three genera are found only in India. Among the 1358 bird species present in India, there are 79 that are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else in the world. The Western Ghats Biogeographic zone has the highest number of these species at 28, with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands being the next most important area for endemism.

At a previously held press meet, ZSI Director, Dhriti Banerjee had said “This is a first-of-its-kind exercise in the world. Some other countries may have separate compilations of mammals, amphibians or insects. But India is the first country in the world which has prepared a complete list of fauna documented from the country…While India accounts for only two per cent of the planet’s land mass, it accounts for 7.5 per cent of the world’s biodiversity. We are a remarkably biodiverse country, especially when you take our population density into account…In India, we continue the hunt and on an average 300 new species are discovered every year...This is unlike most countries in Europe where scientists have to go to outside their homeland – say to other places like Costa Rica – to come across new faunal resources as few countries boast of such diversity in fauna as well as flora like India.”

Banerjee had also said documenting a new species is akin to preparing the Aadhaar card of a person in the country – like the Aadhaar card details the database will contain the name of the creature, the date and year when it was discovered (like the date of birth of an individual), from where it was discovered (residence address) and name of the discoverer (name of parent). Underscoring the importance of saving each species in the ecosystem, she cautioned against indiscriminate use of pesticides to kill insects which play an important role. “Had there been no bees how would cross-pollination of pollen grains would have been possible? How would vegetables, and crops grow? Insects play a crucial role in continuing the food chain. Imagine the cost of rice, potato, etc., if humans would have to do it manually,” she added.

Banerjee pointed that the ZSI has collaborated with Natural History Museum, London and plans to approach other museums to trace missing links of certain faunal species which could not been fully documented in its exhaustive ‘checklist’ for chronicling every species, including insects. The two institutions “work together to collect, study and conserve faunal specimens for science and to create and exchange associated data and images”. While most of the species had been catalogued, missing links were found in around 2000 hampering the drive to document their origin and evolution in its entirety. She added that the ZSI is also having talks with the Berlin Museum and the Smithsonian Institution, US, for similar initiatives aimed at digitizing the species to get a whole and comprehensive picture of the origin, growth and history of the species.