Record
of Tetracerus quadricornis (de
Blainville, 1816) in Pilibhit Forest division of Terai Arc Landscape, Uttar
Pradesh, India
Meraj Anwar 1, Harish Kumar 2 & Joseph
Vattakavan 3
1,2,3 World Wide Fund for Nature-India,
172-B, Lodi Estate, New Delhi 110003, India
Email: 1 anwar.meraj@gmail.com (corresponding
author)
Date of publication (online): 26 April 2011
Date of publication (print): 26 April 2011
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor:L.A.K. Singh
Manuscript
details:
Ms #
o2591
Received
29 September 2010
Final
received 10 February 2011
Finally
accepted 30 March 2011
Citation: Anwar, M., H. Kumar & J. Vattakavan (2011). Record of Tetracerus
quadricornis (de Blainville, 1816)
in Pilibhit Forest division of Terai Arc Landscape, Uttar Pradesh, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(4): 1719–1721.
Copyright: © Meraj Anwar, Harish Kumar & Joseph
Vattakavan 2011. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes,
reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and
the source of publication.
Acknowledgements: We wish to thank Mr. Ravi Singh, SG & CEO, WWF-India
for providing resources, Mr. B.K. Patnaik, PCCF, Uttar Pradesh, and Mr. V.K.
Singh, D.F.O. Pilibhit FD for permission and providing logistic support to
carry out study. We would like to acknowledge Drs. Dipankar Ghose and Sejal
Worah for coordinating the study. We are thankful to Mr. Qamar Qureshi, Dr.
Y.V. Jhala and researchers of Wildlife Institute of India for their technical
inputs in the study. Dr. Koustubh Sharma is acknowledged for providing
literature. Two unknown reviewers are acknowledged for sparing time to improve
this manuscript.
For figures, images --
click here
The occurrence of
Four-horned Antelope Tetracerus quadricornis from Terai Arc
Landscape of India was dubious in the recent past (Krishna et al. 2009), and
was considered locally extirpated from the north of the Gangetic
plains (Sharma 2006). The only
sighting of a Four-horned Antelope, also called Chausingha, with a fawn was reported from
Kaladhungi area of Uttarakhand by Corbett (1953).
In the Pilibhit
Forest Division of Uttar Pradesh the photograph of a T. quadricornis (Image 1) was captured by camera trap
during the exercises carried out for population estimation of the Tiger Panthera tigris between 22 May and 30 June
2010. The location where the
photo-capture of T.
quadricornis was possible is at
the coordinates 28039’00.5”N & 79056’17.0”E. It is in the Marwari Beat of the Mala Forest
Range (Fig. 1). Camera trapping was
carried out in an area of 150km² over 30 trap stations on 40 occasions (Anwar
et al. 2010).
This is the first
photographic record of T. quadricornis from the Pilibhit
District of Uttar Pradesh State. It is
believed that T. quadricornis has traditionally occurred in Pilibhit
Forest Division but sightings have escaped proper identification. From a distance clear identification of
Chausingha from Muntjac Muntiacus muntjak and Hog Deer Axis
porcinus may be confusing (Nowak 1991). In the Pilibhit Forest Division, the ecological associates of T.
quadricornis include the Nilgai Boselaphus tragocamelus, Hog Deer and Muntjac, among other cervids.
T.
quadricornis is differentiated from Nilgai on the
basis of its smaller size and height (1:9 and 1:2, respectively) and the
presence of four horns (Leslie & Sharma 2009). It differs in its body posture from Muntjac
and Hog Deer (Meraj Anwar pers. obs.). Chousingha has a delicate-build, thin short yellow-creamy fawn pelage,
whitish ventral and inner leg markings without clear demarcation, and has a
most conspicuous elongated and well developed preorbital gland (Leslie &
Sharma 2009).
T.
quadricornis is one of the most
diminutive, non-congener members of the order Artiodactyla, family Bovidae,
subfamily Bovinae and tribe Boselaphinae. It is a sexually dimorphic boselaphid and generally males are recognized
by the presence of two anterior and two posterior smooth and sharp horns
pointing slightly backwards. It prefers
a dry deciduous forested habitat and hilly terrain and is secretive and has
been little studied (Leslie & Sharma 2009).
T.
quadricornis is endemic to the
Indian peninsula and Indus divisions of the Indian sub-region in the Asian
Indo-Malayan Region (Corbet & Hill 1992) and occurs only in India and Nepal
(Chesemore 1970; Krishnan 1972; Prater 1980; Rice 1991; Rahmani 2001; Singh
& Swain 2003; Sharma et al. 2005). Historically, T. quadricornis was distributed
from the Punjab and Terai region of Nepal to the Nilgiri Hills in the south and
the Bengal region in the east to Sind province of Pakistan in the west (Jerdon
1874; Murray 1884; Blanford 1888).
The species is
considered to be abundant in central India and a small population from the
forests of Kheri District in Uttar Pradesh State of India. Inference regarding the presence of T.
quadricornis in Kheri District (Fig. 2) was based on a questionnaire
survey but the status was unknown, and therefore, further confirmation was
recommended by Sharma (2006).
The inclusion of
Pilibhit Forest Division in the distribution range of Chousingha is a
record. The terrain of Pilibhit FD is
characterized by very gentle slopes with a mosaic of grasslands, moist
deciduous and dry deciduous forests. The
present photographic record of T. quadricornis is from a forest dominated with Sal Shorea robusta trees.
References
Anwar, M., H. Kumar & J. Vattakavan (2010). Range extension
of Rusty-spotted Cat to the Indian Terai. Cat News 53: 25–26.
Blanford,
W.T. (1888). The Fauna of British India,
including Ceylon and Burma Mammalia. Taylor and
Francis, London, 519–521pp.
Chesemore,
D.L. (1970). Notes on the mammals of southern
Nepal. Journal of Mammalogy 51: 162–166.
Corbet, G.B.
& J.E. Hill (1992). The Mammals of the Indomalayan
Region: A Systematic Review. Oxford University
Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 488pp.
Corbett, J.
(1953). Jungle lore: Chapter 8. Oxford University Press,
ElyHouse, London, 168pp.
Jerdon, T.C.
(1874). A Handbook of The Mammals of
India. Reprinted in 1984 by Mittal Publications, New Delhi,
India, 273–275pp.
Krishnan, M. (1972). An ecological survey of the larger mammals of peninsular India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 69: 469–501.
Krishna, Y.C., P.J. Clyne, J. Krishnaswamy & N.S.
Kumar (2009). Distributional and
ecological review of the four-horned antelope, Tetracerus quadricornis. Mammalia 73: 1–6.
Leslie, D.M. Jr. & K. Sharma (2009). Tetracerus quadricornis (Artiodactyla:
bovidae). Mammalian Species 843: 1–11.
Murray, J.A.
(1884). The Vertebrate Zoology of Sind. Richardson and
Co., London, 424pp.
Nowak, R.M.
(1991). Walker’s Mammals of The World. 5th ed. Vol. II. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1629pp.
Prater, S.H. (1980). The Book of Indian Animals. Bombay Natural History Society, Bombay, India, 428pp.
Rahmani, A.R.
(2001). India, pp. 178–187. In: Mallon, D.P. & S.C.
Kingswood (comps.). Antelopes - Part 4: North Africa, the Middle East, and
Asia. International Union for Conservation
of Nature and Natural Resources, Gland, Switzerland.
Rice, C.G.
(1991). The status of Four-horned Antelope Tetracerusquadricornis. Journal of the Bombay Natural
History Society 88: 63–66.
Sharma, K.
(2006). Distribution, status, ecology, and
behavior of the four-horned antelope Tetracerus quadricornis). PhD dissertation, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India.
Sharma, K., A.R. Rahmani & R.S. Chundawat (2005). Ecology and Distribution of Four-horned
Antelope Tetracerus quadricornis in India. Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.
Singh, L.A.K. & D. Swain (2003). The Four-horned Antelope or Chousingha (Tetracerus quadricornis) in Similipal. Zoos’ Print Journal 18(9): 1197–1198.