With tropical and deciduous rainforest, grasslands and scrub forests, montane forests, the Western Ghats in India, is consisted with one of the richest collections of flora and fauna on this earth planet, and is regarded as one of the world’s eighteen bio-diversity hotspots.



The Western Ghats or Sahyadri mountains contain more than 330 species of butterflies, 1800 species of plants, 100 species of frogs and more than ten species of bats, comprising rarely found wroughton’s free-tailed bat, the false vampire bat, Indian flying fox, the painted bat and the short nosed fruit bat.



If you are really a true nature lover, the Western Ghats are profused with natural beauty where you can find the rarest things, which can hardly ever be seen somewhere. The Western Ghats run along the western tip of India’s Deccan Plateau, untying it from a narrow coastal plain all along the Arabian Sea.



The range begins from south of the Tapti River close to the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra, and runs about 1600 km via the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, to the southern point of the Indian peninsula and comes to an end in close proximity to Swamithoppe in Marunthuvazh Malai in Tamil Nadu.



The highest elevation is approximately 900 meters. The Western Ghats are the watershed for South India’s main eastward-flowing rivers, the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri. Short, steep westward flowing streams supplies hydroelectricity to west-coast cities





Mountain Range



Highest peaks comes by in the northern section of the range in Maharashtra, remarkably Kalsubai 1646 m (5427 ft), Mahabaleshwar 1438 m (4710 ft) and Harishchandragarh 1424 m (4691 ft); in southwest Karnataka, markedly Kudremukh at 1862 m (6,109 ft) and Mullayanagiri at 1925 m (6,317 ft); and in the southern part of the range, with Anai Mudi in Kerala at 2695 meters (8,842 ft) getting the highest peak in the Western Ghats.



Chembra Peak in Kerala at 2100 m, Banasura Peak in Kerala at 2073 m and Vellarimala in Kerala at 2200 meters. The Goa gap, between the Maharashtra and Karnataka sections, and the Palghat Gap that joins Tamil Nadu to Kerala are the only single main gaps in the range. Smaller ranges, comprising the Nilgiri Hills with Doddabetta, the highest peak at 2623 meters of northwestern Tamil Nadu and Biligirirangans southeast of Mysore in Karnataka, meet up the Shevaroys, Servarayan range, and Tirumala range farther east, connecting the Western Ghats to the Eastern Ghats. These ranges of hills are considered significant wildlife corridors, letting species such as elephants to move between the ranges.

















Rain Forests



Historically the Western Ghats were well covered in dense forests. In the south, they have the only rainforests of southern India. These forests are home to an attention-grabbing and diverse fauna and flora, loads of of them viewing resemblance to the Malayan region, however are more and more threatened by human activity. A number of national parks and other protected areas come within the range, however it is estimated that only a small fraction of the Western Ghats is in untouched condition. The Silent Valley National Park in Kerala is regarded by loads of to be the final tracts of virgin tropical evergreen forest in India.



Flora and Fauna



Biogeographers have long given importance to the unique animal and plants communities of the Western Ghats. A lot of of these faunal and floral elements cannot be seen anywhere else in India apart from in parts of northeastern India. The Western Ghats are also meant for a home to countless common species, and the endemism is chiefly high in the reptilian fauna and amphibian. The snake family Uropeltidae is virtually utterly diversified and restricted in this region of the world. A few Western Ghats streams are home to a freshwater puffer fish Tetraodon travancoria besides marine forms such as Chelonodon patoca (Buchanan-Hamilton, 1822)