Satellite view of southern India and northern Sri Lanka   Southern Asia: Southern India into the island of Sri Lanka Deserts and Xeric Shrublands   131,400 square miles (340,300 square kilometers) -- about the size of New Mexico and Maryland combined Critical/Endangered

· Pockets of Diversity
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Pockets of Diversity

This ecoregion once teemed with tigers and Asian elephants. However, as the habitat has been destroyed and an increasing human population demands more land, only small pockets of habitat remain. These are often too small for tigers and Asian elephants to survive in, and, as a result, these animals are now rare here.

Special Features

Short, thorny trees and shrubs now dominate the region, but this habitat does not support the many species whose numbers are in decline, such as the great Indian bustard and blackbuck. The original vegetation is believed to be patches of tropical dry forest. One of the largest protected areas in this ecoregion provides habitat for the great Indian bustard. Other protected areas include patches of dry forest that harbor large numbers of medicinal plants and other plants that exist nowhere else.

	A potentially valuable medicine has been found in a tree, the red sander, that grows here. Unfortunately, the medical compound cannot be harvested without cutting down the red sander, which is becoming rare.

Wild Side

You can think in threes in this ecoregion: Of the 95 species of mammals that live in this region, three--one bat and two rodents--live nowhere else. Of the 350 species of birds that live here, three -- Jerdonās Courser, Ceylon junglefowl, and the yellow-fronted barbet--live almost nowhere else. In addition, sloth bears, wild dogs, gaurs, and chousinghas roam the ecoregion.

Cause for Concern

Overgrazing helped turn this regionās dry deciduous forests into pasturelands dominated by thorn scrub, and this problem continues. But now even the scrubby pasturelands are threatened--by an invasive exotic plant. As more pasturelands are lost to this alien plant, the farmers turn their livestock loose in what remains of the natural grasslands and forests.

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