3. Western Ghats and Sri Lanka:

♤ Western Ghats, also known as the “Sahyadri Hills” encompasses the mountain forests in the southwestern parts of India and highlands of southwestern Sri Lanka.

♤ The entire extent of hotspot was originally about 1,82,500 square kms, but due to tremendous population pressure, now only 12,445 square Km or 6.8% is in pristine condition.

♤ The wide variation of rainfall patterns in the Western Ghats, coupled with the region’s complex geography, produces a great variety of vegetation types.

♤ These include scrub forests in the low-lying rainshadow areas and the plains, deciduous and tropical rainforests up to about 1,500 meters, and a unique mosaic of montane forests and rolling grasslands above 1,500 meters.

♤ In Sri Lanka diversity includes dry evergreen forests to dipterocarpus dominated rainforests to tropical montane cloud forest.