Poona, Maharashtra, India Photograph by © WWF/Mauri RAUTKARI   Southern Asia: Western India Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   18,600 square miles (48,200 square kilometers) -- about the size of Maryland and New Hampshire combined Critical/Endangered

· Life in a Dry Forest
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Life in a Dry Forest

At the beginning of the four-to-five-month dry season, the leaves are starting to fall in the North Western Ghats Moist Deciduous Forests. Soon, another layer of leaf litter will be added to the forest floor, providing cover for squirrels and other small creatures that live there. But when the monsoon rains return, the forests will turn green again.

Special Features

On the slopes of the Western Ghats Mountains, the moist deciduous forests form a swath around the rain forests. Together, the two ecoregions create a vital conservation lifeline. These forests provide habitat for an impressive variety of wildlife, with the largest populations found in the drier forests. Some of India’s best known large animals, such as tigers and Asian elephants, live here along with more than 345 species of birds.

	The great Indian hornbill lives here and grows to a length of 4.5 feet (1.4 m). Its body is black and white with a massive yellow bill. On top of the bill is a hornlike casque made of solid ivory, which gives the bird its name.

Wild Side

One forest resident is the chousinga, a small Indian antelope. The male chousinga has a highly unusual characteristic—it has two pairs of horns! These animals, along with 86 other species of mammals, support large numbers of predators such as tigers, leopards, and wild dogs. Sloth bears also roam the forests foraging for food such as termites.

Cause for Concern

Elephants, tigers, and the other large animals in this ecoregion need large blocks of habitat to survive. These populations are declining quickly--the forests are being cleared and converted into rubber, tea, and coffee plantations--with only a quarter of the natural habitat remaining in scattered fragments.

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