 Today we are here to know something about the reptiles of North East India, we will give emphasis to North East India and we will also know what are the different species of reptiles are found here in North East India. As you know reptiles and amphibians are grouped together into a subject called herpetology. So the subject we do with the study of reptiles and amphibians are called as herpetology. So I am a herpetologist and I am doing this herpetology. So here in North East India as you know the diversity of all the animals like plants and animals both are astonishing. It is very very diverse as you know from this picture this is the different global biodiversity hotspot of the world and marked in red. So India has two biodiversity hotspots and both these two, one is West Bengal and one is North East India. So as you know this North East India falls into two biodiversity hotspots zone. One is the Himalayan hotspot region and one is the Indo-Burman hotspot region of the world. So we might ask a question that why this diversity is so much prominent in North East India. That is just because of the you know North East India's geographical position border shared with China, Myanmar and Bhutan all these international boundaries. Plus the ultitudinal diversity what we met the physiography of the region is so that it supports lot of different types of habitat. So from this picture we can see that the number one, two and three these are the different geographic zones of North East India. So this number one zone is the Himalayan range. Number two as you see the plain area is the Assam plain and the number three is the continuous mountain chains which are known as North Eastern Mountains. So these North Eastern Mountains are low to mid elevation hills and these are also low to very high snow peak mountains and this is Eluvial Assam plain the position of the Brahmaputra river. So this picture probably tell us the single picture tell us the ultitudinal variation in North East India. As you see from this this is the river valley and then it starts the tropical evergreen forest which is the most important habitat for reptiles. And then sub-tropical to temperate vegetation occurs at 1000 to 2000 meter elevation and then we have the snow cloud peak. So as you know the reptiles they are not much pronounced in this zone. So most of the reptiles and amphibians are concentrated in the tropical and sub-tropical zone of North East India. So going into the forest in North East India we have this tropical evergreen forest the close up of the forest. As we see this forest are very thick and impenetrable and all the trees are having lot of epiphytes. So these are most favorable habitat for reptiles and amphibians and these forests are also having lot of mountain streams with big boulders and rocks and with two lines of vegetation which are very favorable habitat for reptiles and amphibians. And as we go higher we have this sub-tropical forest which are all the very cold climates and all the trees are bryophyte laden. So coming to the reptilian diversity what we have in North East India. So far in India we have something around 280 species of snakes but we have in North East India we have 102 species so far recorded. But the total reptilian diversity as you know reptiles consist of crocodiles, turtles, lizards and snakes. So we have one species of crocodile which is very much threatened nowadays the Dharial. 21 species of turtles, turtles, fauna is the most rich in North East India. Out of 29 species in India 21 occurring in North East. 50 species of lizards and 102 species of snakes are being recorded from North East India. So first starting with crocodile in India we have this is called saltwater crocodile, crocodile as porosus. This is a mother crocodile, thresholded crocodile and crocodile as pelustris. And then we have Dharial the most long snout crocodile. So these three different types of crocodile occurring in India. Out of which in North East India Dharial once occurred in the Brahmaputra and Bharat river system but now it disappeared in the last couple of decades. So why Dharial disappeared? So characteristic is that they are the largest freshwater crocodile and rank closest to saltwater. And then Dharial can grow up to 181 kgs which is quite big and males of them grow up to 6 meters and something around 20 feet in length males but females are little smaller so they grow up to 12 feet of length females. Then hatchling at the time of they come out from the egg they are of 32 to 37 centimeter long. So Dharial is the most sexually dimorphic means the male and female is very easily can be distinguished among all the reptiles as males of the Dharial have a big gharalite structure on their snout, knob like structure however the females don't have that. So we can easily identify the male and female Dharial. So from this Dharalite appendage the name Dharial came into being. So nesting you know Dharial has a very interesting nesting habit where females they dig the nest in a sandy beach or sand bar of the river valley and this is the hole nest of the Dharial. So the hole is something around 50 centimeter deep and then after they lay something of 40 to 80 eggs per clutch and these Dharial eggs are supposed to be one of the largest among all the crocodile eggs. So these are the Dharial eggs you can see. So nesting during this monsoon season so the nesting starts and this is the sand beach where Dharial used to nest and in the night time the females climb the sand bar. So you can see the marks on the sand they climb on the top and they dig the sand and deposit their eggs. So this is the time where nesting begins and at this time you can see a lot of all the sand banks and bars are marked with the Dharial belly marking. So that initiate the process of nesting. So then coming to the next group of reptiles we have turtle and tortoise as you know we have the richest diversity of freshwater turtles. So turtles and tortoise we basically divide into tortoise and tortoise what is the difference between them. This is one of the species of tortoise we can say this is elongated tortoise and found in the Shal forest area western Assam part and why they are called tortoise because they have an elephant and limb. The limbs are like elephants and they have a hard shell on their body and they are largely terrestrial they really go into the water. So this is another largest species of tortoise found in northeast India in Mizoram, Kachar and of the southern Brahmaputra hill districts. This is Manawariya and this is Asian giant tortoise. So this is one of the most endangered tortoise nowadays. So you can see the legs it's like more like elephants and they are very much terrestrial. Coming to the turtles, turtles can be divided into hard shell and soft shell turtles. So this is the species called hard shell turtles and they are in Assamese we call them Durakaso. This is very small in size and in the river they bask like this on the fallen logs. They climb when they bask on the morning sun. So these are the hard shell turtles. But why they are called turtles because they are very much aquatic and the limbs are like flippers to swim in the water. Then we have soft shell turtles. In Assamese they are called Burakaso. So the soft shell turtles is completely aquatic they grow really large 80 kgs of weight they can grow. And you can see complete webbed feet for swimming and that shows that they have a very strong aquatic mode of life. And their therapies is also soft. So they are called soft shell turtles. So these are the two groups of large growing reptiles but we have lot of small varieties which actually contribute to the diversity. So this is one of the most common lizard species we call Tespia. So it's because they grow the red coloration on their neck during the mating season to attract the female. So but the other way we mistake that it is it sucks the blood from the human which is completely false. This is just a coloration to attract their mate. So these are the very common lizard always found in our gardens and also cities and also forest areas. But there are some lizard which we don't see much and they live on the high on the hills. So this is one of the green species of lizard and it's very common in higher elevation in the subtropical forest called green callotis. And then this is the blue lizard this is also a mountain species very nice called moustache callotis. So they have a nice moustache like coloration and this is also a breeding coloration. Only male have this color. And then we have another agamid called fan-throated lizard. They have a doughlet. This truck is called doughlet. So whenever they see any female the males of the group they take out the doughlet. And then they show it. So based on the size of the doughlet they are selected for mating. And then another interesting lizard is the Draco or flying lizard we say. But they have a big potassium like potassium or like wing like structure called potassium. And they can not actually fly they actually glide from the higher canopy to lower canopy. When they jump they can glide to a distance and that's why they are called flying lizard. It's also available in northeast India. This is the species which we got from near Guwahati city also. Coming to the most abundant and most popular lizard is the house gecko. We call it deity. So this house gecko we often we find in the human structure in our building. And this is the most the biggest house gecko giant gecko we have. So these geckos have a very special characteristic is that they are legs. So you can see they have a different this structure. So by which this is the adhesive disc we can say with this they can create a air pressure. And then with the help of air suction pressure they can cling on the walls. So this is the mechanism with their feet and that's why they are very specialized. And they are the reptiles with the voice. So we always hear the tick-tick sound in the evening time from the geckos. The next group of lizards are the skinks and varanose. Skinks as we know we call them monicora. And they are also the lizard but little bit different because other lizards like geckos also they break the tail. And the skinks they are very very common in the forest floor. They inhibit the forest floor particularly the leaf litter and also some of the species found in the towns also. But this is one of the long-tailed lizard. Long-tailed lizard and this is a forest species particularly it inhibit the tropical evergreen forest areas of northeast India. So whenever somebody if somebody catch them by their tail they can break their tail. So this is one of the mechanism but as we grow more into the skinks we find that slowly slowly there is a disappearance of the limbs. We can see the limbs body is more like they are becoming like snakes and then legs are becoming shorter. So we can say that evolutionarily they are going towards something very special. So and coming to the varanose we have three species of varanose in northeast India. The common Bengal monitor lizard and then this is the yellow monitor lizard which is the rarest. And then another monitor lizard is called water monitor. Water monitor lizard is the world's second largest living lizard. The first living lizard, largest living lizard as you know is the Komodo dragon of Komodo island. But this water monitor lizard is the second largest growing species. So can we identify this animal whether it is a snake or a lizard? The question may be asked in this way and then answer may be so many. Some say some will say that this is a snake and some other will say that this is a lizard. But we can easily identify that this is actually a legless lizard. So as we see the lizard which has completely lost its limbs. But we can identify because the lizard has an eyelid but snakes don't have an eyelid. So by this way we can identify. This is the end of one health.