Wildlife
(Chitwan, western end of the Terai) is home to the tiger, leopard, unicorn rhino and lippu bear.The solitary Royal Bengal tiger is difficult to see. Some lucky ones may be able to see it in Chitwan National Park at nightfall. Now carefully protected, it is at the top of the food chain. In the national parks, it has enough space to support its natural reproduction. The unicorn rhino is the other great pride of the park. It is the most imposing of the three Asian rhinos. Unfortunately, the species is still at the mercy of poachers who sell its horn to the Chinese for a high price. However, its population has been increasing slowly but steadily since 2005. There are now about 600 in this park and a few smaller groups in other parks. The spotted leopard is also a powerful predator. It preys on local livestock and occasionally on humans. The lippu bear is a local, heavy, powerful and hairy species. It has poor eyesight and uses its fearsome claws to search termite mounds for food. Two native species of crocodiles live together in the Terai: the gharial is an endangered species, and the gharial is an animal that lives in rivers. Piscivorous, it has a long and thin jaw. Its distant local cousin is the swamp crocodile, which is more massive and lives rather in stagnant waters. It is omnivorous and attacks anything that comes within its range, including humans. The Asian elephant lives in the wild in the western part of the Terai, but many domesticated elephants are clearly visible around the national parks where they work. They are treated better today than in the past. Macaque monkeys, the wild buffalo, also frequent the lowlands of the Terai and are visible in Chitwan and Bardia. The freshwater dolphins that once populated the rivers are becoming increasingly rare, there are only about fifty of them left in Nepal. It is quite exceptional to come across cobra, viper and bungare that live in the Terai.
The wooded hills are home to wild gaurs or buffaloes, much more massive in appearance than the domestic buffaloes present in most villages; they descend into the plain in spring. Bears, wild boars, jackals and panthers, fleeing the presence of the tiger, still inhabit the central hills of Nepal, some even venturing to the outskirts of the most populated areas. Another fauna populates the high altitudes: deer, wild boar, antelopes, bears, Himalayan goats (thar), red pandas, Himalayan wolves, foxes, etc.. The snow leopard and the red panda prefer the altitude and are very discreet. On the other hand, the langurs or entelles, great grey monkeys with a black face are easily spotted. The rhesus macaque is the most common species. No need to go very far to meet it, just visit the stupa of Swayambunath (Monkey Temple), in the valley of Kathmandu, where the facetious macaques have taken up residence.The flora
Whether tropical or temperate, or alpine, the climatic zones that define Nepal are home to a wide variety of ecosystems. For example, species typical of Europe rub shoulders with those of northern Asia, India or South-East Asia. More than 6,500 species of trees and flowers have been recorded. Today largely cleared, the Terai was originally a large forest where acacias and sal forest(Shorea robusta) predominated, whose very hard wood was used for the construction of monuments in the Kathmandu valley. Banians and pipals, bamboos, magnolias, oaks, laurels, chestnuts, maples and subtropical conifers - the list is long. The country's extraordinary topography offers a floral panel that is just as much so. But the most characteristic tree of Nepal is undoubtedly the rhododendron (30 species!). Reaching up to 18 m in height, this tree is the joy of trekkers from April, between 2 500 m and 4 000 m in altitude, during the flowering season. The mimosas that crown the heights of Dorpatan, south of Dhaulaugiri, mark the invisible border between the more humid east of Nepal and the continental climate of the west. At a higher altitude, conifers appear: blue pines, larches, and deodars or cedars of the gods. Rhododendrons become shrubby, edelweiss grows in the grasslands, and mosses announce the limit of snow. Beyond the Himalayan range, the landscape becomes mineral and only junipers manage to cling to the mountainside. Nothing grows in the Dolpo, and it will come as no surprise to see the young hero of the film Himalayas looking for a tree.
