10. Sloth Bear

 

Common Name:  Bear sloth 

Scientific Name:  Melursus ursinus inornatus

Animal Family:  Ursidae

Description:  Sri lanka sloth bears have much shorter body hair than the common sloth bear and a much less shaggy appearance.

Habitat:  The sloth bear sticks to heavily foreststed areas, with a lot of rock outcrops and caves in dry zone of Sri lanka.

Foods:  sloth bears feats on a variety of fruits such as 'palu', 'weera', etc .They are also known to climb up trees to get at bee hives. They will also eat leafy plants, nuts, vegetables and rodents.

09. Nillu Rat

 

Common Name:   Sri lanka mountain rat

Scientific Name:  Rattus montanus

Animal Family:  Muridae

Description:  Grayish brown with a reddish tinge dorsally, darkest along back. Underparts gray grading into whitish. Chin and upper throat white. Tail balckish brown with fine dark hairs.

Habitat:  Knuckles, Horton plains, Nuwara Eliya, and Ohiya in the central highlands of central and Uva provinces of Sri lanka.

Foods:  Fruits, vegetables, cooked egg, grains and seeds.

08.Layard's Plam Squirrel

 

Common Name:   Falme- striped jungle squirrel 

Scientific name:  Funambulus layardi

Animal Family:  Sciuridae

Description:  Its head and body length is 12-17 cm, with a14 cm tail. In colour, it is balckish brown with three stripes on its dorsum; the central stripes is broadest and longest with an orange hue in signatus yellow in 

Habitat:  A diurnal forests dweller, this species is somstimes found close to human dwellings or tea plantations at the edges of forests .

Foods:  The feeds on tender leaves, fruits, nuts and lichens.

07.Indian Flying Fox

Common Name:  Greater India fruits bat

Scientific Name:  Pteropus giganteus

Animal Family:  Pteropodidea

Description:  Nomadic mammals that travel across large areas of Australia, feeding on native blossoms and fruits, spreading seeds and pollinating native plants.

Habitat:  Across the Indian Subcontinent , including in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Tibet , the Maldives, 

Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Foods:  Indian Flying foxes maintain a frugivorous diet, supplementing it with insects as well as flowers, containing juice and nectar.

06. Asian Elephant

 

Common Name:   Asiatic elephant 

Scientific Name:   Elephas maximus 

Animal Family:   Elephantidae

Population:   Asian elephants once roamed across most of asia, now they're restricted to just 15% of there original range, in a number of fragmented and isolated population around south and south east Asia. Today, there are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants left in the wild.

Description:  Slightly smaller than their Afircan cousins,adult Asian elephants weigh on average between 6000 and 12000 pounds .They typically stand. 6 to 12 feet tall at the shoulders. Males are usually larger than females .

Habitat:  Asian elephanta are found in isolated pockets of India and Southeast Asia, including Sumatra and Borneo.

Foods:  Cultivated crops such as bananas, rice and sugarcane are favourite foods.

05. Sri Lankan Spotted Chevrotain

 

Common Name:   Mouse- deer

Scientific Name:   Moschiola meminna 

Animal Family:   Tragulidae

Description:   Head and body length in the species typically is 55-60 cm. It is dull brown in color with three or four dotted white stripes going longitudinally along flank.

Habitat:   In Sri lanka, this species is found in the dry zone and is replaced in the wet zone by the yellow- striped chevrotain.

Foods:   Mostly on row fruits or succlent fruits- like produce of palnts such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. 

04. Golden Plam Civet

 

Common Name:   Kalawedda 

Scientific Name:   Paradoxurus zeylonensis

Animal Family:   Viverrids

Description:   The golden plam civet has two morphs- one golden and one dark brown. Specimens from montane areas are darker,slightly greyish -toned wood-brown, and paler on the underside with a yellowish- white tail tip.The rounded ears have hairless edges.The eyes large with vertical pupils.

 Habitat:   Lowland rainforest , montane evergreen forests , and also dense monsoon forest.

Foods:   Friuts, berries, invertebrates, and a wide range of small vertebrates.

03.Sri Lanka Leopard

 

Common Name:   Diviya

Scientific Name:   Panthera pardus kotiya 

Animal Family:   Felidae

Population:   The leopard population is estimated to number around 646 individual in protected areas and 163 animals in unprotected regions.The total number is estimated to lie between 700-950 animal in sri lanka.no subpopulation is thought to be larger than 250 individuals.

Description:   The Sri lanka leopard is still found in all habitat throughout the island in both protected and unprotected areas.

Habitat:   Sri lanka leopard are native to the island of Sri lanka. They are found in a range of habitats from open savannah  to rainforest.

Foods:   small mammals,birds and reptiles, as well as larger animals.The animals also preys on sambar,barking deer,wild boar, and monkeys.

02. Ceylon Gaura

 

Common Name:  Gawara

Scientific Name:  Bibos Sinhaleyus

Animal Family:  Bovidae

Population:  Extended 

Description:  About 7 feet tall, stronger than a buffalo, bigger than. bison, slightly shorter than an Indian buffalo, weighing 700-1000kg. Females and cubs are quite light and beautiful, with few hairs when hatching.

Habitat:  Misty Central Highlands Leopard Range, Knuckles Mountain, Butterfly Mountain Horton Plains.

Food:  A type of grass called gavaramana, gavarakele, which grows in the highlands plains. 

01. Purple Face Langur

Common Name:   Sri Lankan Kalu Wadura

Scientific Name:   Trachypithecus vetulus

Animal Family:   Cercopithecidae

Description:  Males weigh somewhere between 15lbs (7kg) and 21  lbs (9kg) and female weigh between 11lbs (5kg) and 17lbs (8kg).The animal is a long-tailed arboreal species, identified by a mostly brown appearance, dark face (with paler lower face) and a very shy nature. The pelage may generally vary from blackish to grayish. The species tends to have whitish to gray short 'trousers' rounded off by purplish black  faced with white sideburns. 

Found Where:   The purple-faced langur is found in closed canopy forests in Sri Lanka's mountains and the southwestern part of country' known as the ''wet zone''.

Habitat:   The range consists of the most densely populated lowland rainforest areas of sri lanka purple-faced langurs are most often found in small and widely scattered groups. ninety percent of the langurs range, now consists of human populated areas. populations are critically low within and between sites