Handbook on Mammals of Kerala

Mammals are the animals that man knows best, perhaps, since the primeval period of his his hunter-gatherer-status. They are the most advanced of all the other groups (classes) of animals of the world today. The members have a worldwide distribution living in diverse eco-habitats like marine and fresh water systems, glaciers, forests and deserts. The mammalian diversity reported from the world is about 4629 species, of which 408 species are recorded from India, with 44 of them endemic to the country. In the present work, 109 species of mammals reported so far from Kerala are dealt with. Two species, representing wolf and striped hyena, as mammals recorded from Kerala, have been omitted from this document for want of the authentic reports/evidences confirming their occurrence in Kerala. The vernacular names of the species used by local and tribal people-except for some of the lesser-known groups of mammals, like bats, that do not have separate vernacular names-have been adopted and added in this work.