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Mukurthi National Park
Mukurthi National Park (MNP) is a protected area located in the western corner of the Nilgiris Plateau west of Ootacamund hill station in the northwest corner of Tamil Nadu state in the Western Ghats mountain range of South India. The park was created to protect its keystone species, the Nilgiri tahr. The park is characterised by montane grasslands and shrublands interspersed with sholas in a high altitude area of high rainfall, near-freezing temperatures and high winds. It is home to an array of endangered wildlife, including royal Bengal tiger and Asian elephant, but its main mammal attraction is the Nilgiri tahr. The park was previously known as Nilgiri Tahr National Park. The park is a part of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, India's first International Biosphere Reserve. As part of the Western Ghats, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1 July 2012. History Native hill tribe communities including the Toda people have harvested firewood from the sholas and grazed their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nilgiri Tahr
The Nilgiri tahr (''Nilgiritragus hylocrius'') is an ungulate that is endemic to the Nilgiri Hills and the southern portion of the Western and Eastern Ghats in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in southern India. It is the state animal of Tamil Nadu.Prater, S. H. 1948, 1971. ''The book of Indian Animals'', Bombay Natural History Society and Oxford University Press, India. 324 pages. . Despite its local name, it is more closely related to the sheep of the genus '' Ovis'' than the ibex and wild goats of the genus '' Capra''. It is the only species in the genus ''Nilgiritragus''. Etymology In Tamil, the Nilgiri tahr is called வரையாடு (''varaiaadu''). The word ''varaiaadu'' is derived from the Tamil words ''wurrai'' meaning "precipice" and ''aadu'' meaning "goat". The word in ancient Tamil was வருடை (''varudai''). In Malayalam, the word is വരയാട് (''varyaadu''). The Nilgiri tahr was described as ''Capra warryato'' by Gray. The genus name '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Biosphere Reserve
Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific program, launched in 1971 by UNESCO, that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments. MAB's work engages fully with the international development agenda—specially with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Post 2015 Development Agenda—and addresses challenges linked to scientific, environmental, societal and development issues in diverse ecosystems; from mountain regions to marine, coastal and island areas; from tropical forests to dry lands and urban areas. MAB combines the natural and social sciences, economics and education to improve human livelihoods and the equitable sharing of benefits, and to safeguard natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate, and environmentally sustainable. The MAB program provides a unique platform for coop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acacia Mollissima
''Acacia mearnsii'', commonly known as black wattle, late black wattle or green wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is usually an erect tree with smooth bark, bipinnate leaves and spherical heads of fragrant pale yellow or cream-coloured flowers followed by black to reddish brown pods. In some other parts of the world, it is regarded as an invasive species. Description ''Acacis mearnsii'' is a spreading shrub or erect tree that typically grows to a height of and has smooth bark, sometimes corrugated at the base of old specimens. The leaves are bipinnate with 7 to 31 pairs of pinnae, each with 25 to 78 pairs of pinnules. There is a spherical gland up to below the lowest pair of pinnae. The scented flowers are arranged in spherical heads of twenty to forty and are pale yellow or cream-coloured, the heads on hairy peduncles long. Flowering mainly occurs from October to December and black to reddish-bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus name is New Latin, borrowed from the Greek (), a term used by Dioscorides for a preparation extracted from the leaves and fruit pods of '' Vachellia nilotica'', the original type of the genus. In his ''Pinax'' (1623), Gaspard Bauhin mentioned the Greek from Dioscorides as the origin of the Latin name. In the early 2000s it had become evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesia was not closely related to the much smaller group of African lineage that contained ''A. nilotica''—the type species. This meant that the Australasian lineage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The crops that are grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located. In modern use the term is usually taken to refer only to large-scale estates, but in earlier periods, before about 1800, it was the usual term for a farm of any size in the southern parts of British North America, with, as Noah Webster noted, "farm" becoming the usual term from about Maryland northwards. It was used in most British colonies, but very rarely in the United Kingdom itself in this sense. There, as also in America, it was used mainly for tree plantati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kozhikode
Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second largest metropolitan area in Kerala and the 19th largest in India. Kozhikode is classified as a Tier 2 city by the Government of India. It is the largest city in the region known as the Malabar and was the capital of the British-era Malabar district. In antiquity and the medieval period, Kozhikode was dubbed the ''City of Spices'' for its role as the major trading point for Indian spices. It was the capital of an independent kingdom ruled by the Samoothiris (Zamorins). The port at Kozhikode acted as the gateway to medieval South Indian coast for the Chinese, the Persians, the Arabs and finally the Europeans. According to data compiled by economics research firm Indicus Analytics in 2009 on residences, earnings and investments, Kozhi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sispara
Sispara , സിസ്പാര (Sisapara, Sisparra, Sisparah, Su:spore), a proper noun, is a combination of the Badaga language words ''si:su'' + ''pore''; meaning: magnetite bearing rock + gorge. It may refer to: * Sispara peak, a large hill in Kerala; * Sispara bungalow, the shelter at the base of the peak; * Sispara pass, the low gap between hills where the shelter is located; or * Sispara ghat, the mountain trail that goes through the pass. Sispara peak Sispara peak (സിസ്പാര മല), elevation at , is in the northeast end of Silent Valley National Park, Palakkad district of the Kerala state, in the core area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, in the Western Ghats of South India. It is near the southwest end of Mukurthi National Park in Tamil Nadu state. One can approach this peak by passing northwest up behind the bungalow, and ascending the high bluff below the peak. Half an hour's walk leads to a vertical precipice of the escarpment facing the plains of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bangitappal
Bangitappal (Cannabis tableland), is a valley in the southwest end of Mukurthi National Park located at: , elevation: at the confluence of two streams at the head of the Sispara Pass in the Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ....Venugopal, Dharmalingam, "Stairway to heaven, up the blue mountain", The Hindu Business Line, 8 July 200Ooty trek A forest rest house and a trekkers shed built there in 1930 are now used by park staff and visiting researchers. A rough jeep road leads there from the Upper Bhavani Dam. This valley also contains a dam made from dirt. Notes {{reflist Protected areas of Tamil Nadu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wellington, Tamil Nadu
Wellington is a town in the Nilgiris District of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, three kilometres to the north of Coonoor on the NH181. The town includes a Wellington Bazaar, and the Wellington Cantonment. The Wellington Cantonment is home to The Madras Regimental Centre (MRC) and The Defence Services Staff College (DSSC). The Nilgiri Passenger train passes through Wellington, which also has a railway station. The settlement of Wellington lies immediately outside of Wellington Cantonment, which was earlier known as Jakkatalla (or Jacketallah) from the Badaga Village of that name to the north of it. In 1852, Sir Richard Armstrong, the then Commander-in-Chief, recommended that the name should be changed to Wellington in honour of the Iron Duke, who had previously evinced an interest in the establishment of a sanatorium in the Nilgiris. In 1860, Sir, Charles Trevelyan held that this interesting Military Establishment could not be connected with a more appropriate name than Wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coonoor
Coonoor, natively spelt as Kunnur (), is a Taluk and a municipality of the Nilgiris district in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. As of 2011, the town had a population of 45,494. Demographics According to 2011 census, Coonoor had a population of 45,494 with a sex-ratio of 1,058 females for every 1,000 males, much above the national average of 929. A total of 3,768 were under the age of six, constituting 1,871 males and 1,897 females. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes accounted for 27.92% and 23% of the population, respectively. The average literacy of the city was 84.79%, compared to the national average of 72.99%. The city had a total of 12384 households. There were a total of 17,421 workers, comprising 50 cultivators, 152 main agricultural labourers, 266 in household industries, 15,790 other workers, 1,163 marginal workers, 6 marginal cultivators, 66 marginal agricultural labourers, 31 marginal workers in household industries and 1,060 other marginal workers. The town i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wild Asian Water Buffalo
The wild water buffalo (''Bubalus arnee''), also called Asian buffalo, Asiatic buffalo and wild buffalo, is a large bovine native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as ''Endangered'' in the IUCN Red List since 1986, as the remaining population totals less than 4,000. A population decline of at least 50% over the last three generations (24–30 years) is projected to continue. The global population has been estimated at 3,400 individuals, of which 3,100 (91%) live in India, mostly in Assam.Choudhury, A. (2010). ''The vanishing herds: the wild water buffalo''. Gibbon Books, Rhino Foundation, CEPF & COA, Taiwan, Guwahati, India. The wild water buffalo is the most likely ancestor of the domestic water buffalo. Taxonomy ''Bos arnee'' was the scientific name proposed by Robert Kerr in 1792 who described a skull with horns of a buffalo zoological specimen from Bengal in northern India. ''Bubalus arnee'' was proposed by Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827 who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toda People
Toda people are a Dravidian ethnic group who live in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu. Before the 18th century and British colonisation, the Toda coexisted locally with other ethnic communities, including the Kota, Badaga and Kurumba, in a loose caste-like society, in which the Toda were the top ranking. During the 20th century, the Toda population has hovered in the range 700 to 900. Although an insignificant fraction of the large population of India, since the early 19th century the Toda have attracted "a most disproportionate amount of attention because of their ethnological aberrancy" and "their unlikeness to their neighbours in appearance, manners, and customs". The study of their culture by anthropologists and linguists proved significant in developing the fields of social anthropology and ethnomusicology. The Toda traditionally live in settlements called ', consisting of three to seven small thatched houses, constructed in the shape of half-barrels and located across ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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