A checklist of the vertebrates of Kerala State, India
Main Article Content
Abstract
Following the first publication on vertebrates of India (Blanford 1888–1890), a huge wealth of information has been compiled on the vertebrate fauna of various biogeographic zones of the country, especially the Western Ghats. The state of Kerala comprising of a land area of 38,863km2, 590km coastline, an intricate system of backwaters along the coast, tropical moist forests of the Western Ghats, the highly undulating terrain, and the tropical monsoon is a unique geographical and environmental entity rich in biodiversity. A region-specific checklist that summarises and documents the current status of vertebrate diversity provides benchmark data for documentation and appreciation of biodiversity at regional level. Further, with the current rate of global biodiversity loss and concordant conservation efforts, the taxonomic community has a greater responsibility to make scientific information available to scientists, policy makers, politicians, research students and all relevant stakeholders, an attempt that has been made in the present paper. The State of Kerala has 1847 species of vertebrates in 330 families and 81 orders, of which 386 are endemic to the Western Ghats region (of the Western Ghats - Sri Lanka Hotspot), and 205 species as threatened. Six hundred and eighty species of vertebrates of Kerala have been listed in the various schedules of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, while 148 are listed in the different appendices of CITES.Â
Â
Article Details
Authors own the copyright to the articles published in JoTT. This is indicated explicitly in each publication. The authors grant permission to the publisher Wildlife Information Liaison Development (WILD) Society to publish the article in the Journal of Threatened Taxa. The authors recognize WILD as the original publisher, and to sell hard copies of the Journal and article to any buyer. JoTT is registered under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which allows authors to retain copyright ownership. Under this license the authors allow anyone to download, cite, use the data, modify, reprint, copy and distribute provided the authors and source of publication are credited through appropriate citations (e.g., Son et al. (2016). Bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) of the southeastern Truong Son Mountains, Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. Journal of Threatened Taxa 8(7): 8953–8969. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.2785.8.7.8953-8969). Users of the data do not require specific permission from the authors or the publisher.
References
Ali, S. (1969). Birds of Kerala. Oxford University Press. Oxford. i–xxiii, 1–444.
Anon (2009). Serial Nomination of The Western Ghats of India: Its Natural Heritage For inscription on the World Natural Heritage List. Submitted by State Party: India. http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/1342rev.pdf. Accessed on 16 April 2015.
Anon (2013). Aichi Targets Passport.United Nations Environment Programme and Convention on Biological Diversity, 90pp. http://www.bipindicators.net/resource/aichipassport. Accessed on 16 April 2015.
Bailly, N. (2015). Tylosurus acusmelanotus (Bleeker, 1850). In: Froese, R. & D. Pauly (eds.). FishBase. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=293756 Accessed on 16 April 2015.
Banks, R.C., R.W. McDiarmid & A.L. Gardner (eds.) (1987). Checklist of Vertebrates of the United States, the U.S. Territories, and Canada. IV. Series: Resource publication (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).
Biju, S.D. & F. Bossuyt (2009). Systematics and phylogeny of Philautus Gistel, 1848 (Anura, Rhacophoridae) in the Western Ghats of India, with descriptions of 12 new species. Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society, 155: 374–444.
Collen B., F. Whitton, E.E. Dyer, J.E.M. Baillie, N. Cumberlidge, W.R.T. Darwall, C. Pollock, N.I. Richman, A.M. Soulsby & M. Bohm (2014). Global patterns of freshwater species, diversity, threat and endemism. Global Ecology and Biogeography 23: 40–51
Dahanukar, N., R. Raghavan, A. Ali, R. Abraham & C.P. Shaji (2011). The status and distribution of freshwater fishes of the Western Ghats. pp 21–48. In: Molur, S., K.G. Smith, B.A. Daniel & W.R.T. Darwall (compilers). The status of freshwater biodiversity in the Western Ghats. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Gland, Switzerland, & Zoo Outreach Organization (ZOO) Coimbatore, India, 116pp.
Dickinson, E.C. & J.V.J. Remsen (eds.) (2013). The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of The World: 1. Non-passerines. 4th edition. Eastbourne, U.K.: Aves Press. Vol. 1 of 2 vols. Pp. i–l, 1–461.
Dickinson, E.C. & L. Christidis (eds.) (2014). The Howard and Moore complete checklist of the birds of the world: Vol. 2. Passerines. 4th ed. Eastbourne, U.K.: Aves Press. Vol. 2 of 2 vols. Pp. i-lii, 1-752, plus CD content.
Eschmeyer, W.N. & J.D. Fong (2015). Species by Family/Subfamily. (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/SpeciesByFamily.asp). Electronic version accessed 04/05/2015.
Frost, D.R. (2015). Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6. 0 Electronic Database accessible at http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.html. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. (accessed March 27, 2015)
Gadgil, M. (2011). Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, Part I & Part II. MoEFCC. 522p.
Grimmett, R., T. Inskipp & P.O. Nameer (2007). Thekkeindiayile pakshikal [Birds of southern India]. BNHS Field Guides. 1–240. In Malayalam. A. C. Black. London
Hanel, L., J. Plistil & J. Novak (2009).Checklist of the fishes and fish-like vertebrates on the European content and adjacent seas. Bulletin Lampetra 6: 108–180.
Hoffmann, M., C. Hilton-Taylor, A. Angulo, M. Böhm, T.M. Brooks,
S.H. Butchart, K.E. Carpenter, J. Chanson, B. Collen, N.A. Cox, W.R. Darwall, N.K. Dulvy, L.R. Harrison, V. Katariya, C.M. Pollock, S. Quader, N.I. Richman, A.S. Rodrigues, M.F. Tognelli, J.C. Vié, J.M. Aguiar, D.J. Allen, G.R. Allen, G. Amori, N.B. Ananjeva, F. Andreone, P. Andrew, A.L. Aquino Ortiz, J.E. Baillie, R. Baldi, B.D. Bell, S.D. Biju, J.P. Bird, P. Black-Decima, J.J. Blanc, F. Bolaños,, G.W. Bolivar, I.J. Burfield, J.A. Burton, D.R. Capper, F. Castro, G. Catullo, R.D. Cavanagh, A. Channing, N.L. Chao, A.M. Chenery, F. Chiozza, V. Clausnitzer, N.J. Collar, L.C. Collett, B.B. Collette, C.F. Cortez Fernandez, M.T. Craig, M.J. Crosby, N.C. Cumberlidge, A. Cuttelod, A.E. Derocher, A.C. Diesmos, J.S. Donaldson, J.W. Duckworth, G. Dutson, S.K. Dutta, R.H. Emslie, A. Farjon, S. Fowler, J. Freyhof, D.L. Garshelis, J. Gerlach, D.J. Gower, T.D. Grant, G.A. Hammerson, R.B. Harris, L.R. Heaney, S.B. Hedges, J.M. Hero, B. Hughes, S.A. Hussain, M.J. Icochea, R.F. Inger, N. Ishii, D.T. Iskandar, R.K. Jenkins, Y. Kaneko, M. Kottelat, K.M. Kovacs, S.L. Kuzmin, E. La Marca, J.F. Lamoreux, M.W. Lau, E.O. Lavilla, K. Leus, R.L. Lewison, G. Lichtenstein, S.R. Livingstone, V. Lukoschek, D.P. Mallon, P.J. McGowan, A. McIvor, P.D. Moehlman, S. Molur, A. Muñoz Alonso, J.A. Musick, K. Nowell, R.A. Nussbaum, W. Olech, N.L. Orlov, T.J. Papenfuss, G. Parra-Olea, W.F. Perrin, B.A. Polidoro, M. Pourkazemi, P.A. Racey, J.S. Ragle, M. Ram, G. Rathbun, R.P. Reynolds, A.G. Rhodin, S.J. Richards, L.O. RodrÃguez, S.R. Ron, C. Rondinini, A.B. Rylands, V. Sadovy de Mitcheson, J.C. Sanciangco, K.L. Sanders, G. Santos-Barrera, J. Schipper, C. Self-Sullivan C, Y. Shi, A. Shoemaker, F.T. Short, C. Sillero-Zubiri, D.L. Silvano, K.G. Smith, A.T. Smith, J. Snoeks, A.J. Stattersfield, A.J. Symes, A.B. Taber, B.K. Talukdar, H.J. Temple, R. Timmins, J.A. Tobias, K. Tsytsulina, D. Tweddle, C. Ubeda, S.V. Valenti, P.P. van Dijk, L.M. Veiga, A. Veloso, D.C. Wege, M. Wilkinson, E.A. Williamson, F. Xie, B.E. Young, H.R. Akçakaya, L. Bennun, T.M. Blackburn, L. Boitani, H.T. Dublin, G.A. da Fonseca, C. Gascon, T.E. Lacher, Jr, G.M. Mace, S.A. Mainka, J.A. McNeely, R.A. Mittermeier, G.M. Reid, J.P. Rodriguez, A.A. Rosenberg, M.J. Samways, J. Smart, B.A. Stein & S.N. Stuart (2010). The impact of conservation on the status of the World’s vertebrates. Science 330: 1503–1515
IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. (2015). Raorchestes travancoricus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2015.2. . Downloaded on 06 August 2015.
Johnsingh, A.J.T. (2001). The Kalakkad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve: A global heritage of biological diversity. Current Science. 80(3):378-388.
KSCSTE (2005). State of the Environment Report of Kerala 2015. Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 349pp.
Mace, G.M., N.J. Collar, K.J. Gaston, C. Hilton-Taylor, H.R. Akçakaya, N. Leader-Williams, E.J. Milner-Gulland & S.N. Stuart (2008). Quantification of extinction risk: IUCN’s system for classifying threatened species. Conservation Biology 22: 1424–144
MOEF (2007). Criteria for inclusion of fauna in the proposed schedules of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Wildlife Institute of India. 86p.
Molur, S., D. Brandon-Jones, W. Dittus, A. Eudey, A. Kumar, M. Singh, M. Feeroz, M. M. Chalise, P. Priya & S. Walker (2003). Status of South Asian Primates: Conservation Assessment and Management Plan (C.A.M.P) Workshop Report. Zoo Outreach Organization / CBSG-South Asia, Coimbatore, India, 432pp.
Molur, S., C. Srinivasulu, B. Srinivasulu, S. Walker, P.O. Nameer &
L. Ravikumar (2005). Status of South Asian Non-volant Small Mammals: Conservation Assessment and Management Plan (C.A.M.P) Workshop Report. Zoo Outreach Organization / CBSG-South Asia, Coimbatore, India, 618pp.
Nameer, P.O. (2000). Checklist of Indian Mammals. Kerala State Forest Department and Kerala Agricultural University, 90pp+xxv.
Neelakantan, K.K. (1984). Keralathile Pakshikal - 2nd Edition. Kerala Sahitya Academy, Trichur
Palot, M.J. & C. Radhakrishnan (2003). Checklist of snakes of Kerala with their Malayalam vernacular names. Reptile Rap. 5: 3–6.
Prater, S.H. (1971). The Book of Indian Animals. 3rd Edition. 12th Reprint 2005. Bombay Natural History Society, Bombay, 324pp.
Radhakrishnan, C. (1997). Reptiles. In: Natural Resources of Kerala. (Eds.) WWF- India, Kerala Chapter, Thiruvananthapuram.
Sashikumar, C., J. Praveen, M.J. Palot & P.O. Nameer (2011). Birds of Kerala: Status and Distribution. DC Books. Kottayam, Kerala, 835pp.
Sasidharan, N. (2000). Forest Trees of Kerala. Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi.
Srinivsaulu, C., B. Srinivasulu & S. Molur (2014). The Status and
Distribution of Reptiles in the Western Ghats, India. Conservation Assessment and Management Plan (CAMP). Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 148pp.
Uetz, P. & J. Hosek (eds.). (2014). The Reptile Database. http://www.Reptiledatabase.org. accessed on 30th Sept. 2014.
WGEEP (2011). Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel. Part I. Submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, 150pp.
Wilson, D.E. & R.A., Mittermeier (eds.). (2009). Handbook of Mammals of the World - Vol. I. Carnivores. Lynx Edicions. Barcelona, 727pp.