Irrawaddy River, Myitsone, Myanmar Photograph by Goto Osami   Southern Asia: Myanmar and India, into Bangladesh Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   52,400 square miles (135,600 square kilometers) -- about the size of Arkansas Vulnerable

· Room to Roam
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Room to Roam

A land of deep gorges and dissected landscapes, this ecoregion is large and diverse -- both topographically and biologically. Here, rugged mountains and hills give way to broad, moist valleys. The region’s largest predator, the tiger, has plenty of room to roam. The tiger shares this ecoregion with an incredibly high number of bird species. Only two other ecoregions in the Indo-Pacific region have more bird species.

Special Features

This ecoregion is at a crossroads -- a "biogeographic" crossroads, that is. Animals and plants found in the Indian, Indo-Malayan, and Indo-Chinese regions converge here, giving the ecoregion high biodiversity. Semi-evergreen forests dominate the ecoregion, with a dense understory of some evergreen trees and bamboo. Monsoons sweep in from the Bay of Bengal, deluging certain areas of the ecoregion with more than 79 inches (200 cm) of rainfall annually.

	The red panda is much smaller than the more-familiar giant panda, and it resembles a raccoon in size and appearance. Despite its relatively smaller size, however, the female red panda can eat about 200,000 bamboo leaves in a single day!

Wild Side

Almost half of this ecoregion’s natural habitat remains intact. As a result, such wide-ranging species as the tiger and Asian elephant travel freely in these large forests. Other threatened mammals include the red panda, the clouded leopard, the gaur, and the back-striped weasel. Two of India’s rare primates -- the stump-tailed macaque and the pig-tailed macaque -- can be found here as well. These forests are also filled with birds: 580 species live here, including four species of pheasants and three hornbills that need intact forests to survive. Because of their need for mature trees and low tolerance for disturbances, a drop in their numbers could mean that more forest is being destroyed.

Cause for Concern

Heavily logged for timber in the past, the primary risks for these forests are shifting cultivation and illegal logging. Other problems include overgrazing by livestock, as well as regular burning to encourage new growth of grasses for livestock. Poaching and capture of wildlife for trade remain serious threats to biodiversity as well.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.