
Gopinathan MaheswaranZoological Survey of India | ZSI · Bird Section
Gopinathan Maheswaran
Ph.D
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69
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Education
November 1991 - June 1997
Publications
Publications (69)
The common house sparrow, Passer domesticus is a small bird belonging to the family Passeridae. Here, we provide high-quality whole genome sequence data along with assembly for the house sparrow. The final genome assembly was made using Shovill/SPAdes/MASURCA/BUSCO which consisted of contigs spanning 268193 bases coalescing 922 MB. We employed rigo...
Dutta (2009) described a new subspecies roonwali of Sri Lanka Frogmouth Batrachostomus moniliger from Karnataka based on specimens in the collections of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). As this description has not found wide
concurrence, we evaluated the specimens against the media available online as 800+ photographs as well as specimens in m...
Large carnivores play a crucial role in trophic cascades, affecting the population dynamics of both co-predators and prey within an ecosystem. Understanding the significance of these carnivores in trophic interactions is essential for developing effective conservation and management strategies. We examined the effects of occupancy dynamics and patt...
The red-breasted merganser Mergus serrator has a widespread global distribution with a stable population and is considered a winter vagrant in South Asia. Since 2016, this species has been recorded six times from many states in India, prompting us to analyse the specimens of the species deposited in the Zoological Survey of India's National Zoologi...
We examine the type localities of four taxa described in Blyth (1847, 1849 and 1852)
that were originally reported as the ‘range beyond Simla, near the snow line’ or just ‘north-west Himalaya’ and suggest a restriction to ‘Tyne Range, interpreted as a range in Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand, near Mussoorie’ based on an analysis of the data on lab...
I reviewed a book by Prof. Abdul Jamil Urfi of Delhi University on Exploring Ecology and Conservation in India.
The present study reports the results of ornithological surveys conducted in Pulicate Lake and its adjoining water bodies in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, India conducted from January to April 2021. A total of 161 bird species were recorded, belonging to 19 different orders, 52 families, and 114 genera. Of these, 11 species were clas...
Historically, White’s Thrush Zoothera aurea has been considered
conspecific with the smaller Scaly Thrush Z. dauma (Ali & Ripley
1987), but it started getting recognised as an independent species
from the 1990s, based mainly upon its vocal distinctiveness
(Martens & Eck 1995; Rasmussen & Anderton 2012; Dickinson
& Christidis 2014; del Hoyo et al. 2...
Globally,forest fire has been recognized as
a major driver of forest degradation. Forest fires are considered
to be a potential hazard with physical, biological,
ecological and environmental consequences. In India, forest
fires are the most significant, and a steadily increasing threat
to ecosystem. Furthermore, fires are responsible for the loss
o...
The Oriental Cuckoo Cuculus optatus has, till recently, often
been considered conspecific with the smaller Himalayan Cuckoo
C. saturatus, until Dickison & Remsen (2013), following Payne
(2005), recognised it as a full species. This has now been followed
by the IOC (Gill et al. 2022), and eBird/Clements (Clements et al.
2022); but not by HBW & BirdL...
Further nesting record of Lord Derby's Parakeet from Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh
While cataloguing the specimens held in the collection of the Zoological Survey of India (hereinafter, ZSI), Kolkata, we came across a few interesting specimens that we document here. Some of these were known to earlier workers, but remained untraceable, while others were known, but, as we found, had been misidentified. They include Black-browed Re...
The critically endangered White-bellied Heron (Ardea insignis) is a piscivorous visual forager that
prefers to forage in fast-flowing freshwater rivers. This study highlights White-bellied Heron foraging behavior in
the fast-flowing rivers of Namdapha Tiger Reserve during 2013–2017. The herons spent significantly more time and
also made more foragi...
This field guide book on Indian birds with proper colour photographs and identification key pointers, make this book significantly different from others. These pointers have been given for confusing or similar looking species thereby one can easily identify the species by looking at the characters highlighted. A detail distribution map is also give...
Two most recently described macaque species; the White Cheeked Macaque (Macaca leucogenys) and Arunachal Macaque (Macaca munzala) were discovered from a single biodiversity hotspot, the Eastern Himalaya. We conducted surveys in the West Siang, Arunachal Pradesh, India and collected five faeces and two skin samples of macaques that on DNA analysis i...
Of the 271 species of birds recorded previously from the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), only 162 species have been sighted
continually during the last decade and 109 species become locally extinct, majority of which are water birds. Surveys
were conducted in and around EKW to assess the impact of developmental activities on the avian diversity, espec...
The complete mitogenome sequence of the Great Frigatebird, Fregata minor was sequenced for the first time in this study. The mitogenome (16,899 bp) comprises of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and a control region (CR). The mitogenome was AT-rich (55.60%) with 11 overlapping and 18 i...
Habitat degradation and loss have affected many species across all major groups in India and elsewhere. However, the water birds are among the most impacted in terms of habitat loss and drastic decline in populations. The White-bellied heron (A. insignis) (WBH), a Critically Endangered and top conservation priority species, has lost much of its hab...
Based on the review of existing literature, a total of 380 species of Birds belonging to 221 genera and 82 families were found to be documented from Telangana state. The highest species diversity was found in the family Passeriformes with about 156 species. According to IUCN data, 2 species viz., Gyps bengalensis (White-rumped Vulture) and Gyps ind...
The North-East biogeographic zone of India reported to have 800 bird species belonging to 365 genera, 90 families and 22 orders which is about 60% of total known species from India. Out of 800 species 699 are reported from 9A biotic province and 798 from 9B biotic province of North-East (9) biogeographic zone. Among them 84 are threatened species,...
The complete mitogenome sequence of the brown-headed gull, Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus was determined in this study. The 16,771 bp genome consists of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and a control region (CR). The decoded mitogenome was AT-rich (54.77%) with nine overlapping and 17...
Each year, the Zoological Survey of India conducts near about 100 field surveys as part of annual programme of research. However, due to COVID-19, we could conduct only 45 surveys. During this year in HQ office out of the 49 programmes 8 were completed and 30 are ongoing and two programmes were newly initiated. With regard to Regional Centres, out...
Consumption of bush meat is one of the major threats to the loss of biodiversity in developing countries. The present study has been conducted in view of ascertaining the species of origin from fully cooked meat that was confiscated from a restaurant at Murshidabad district of West Bengal in India and suspected to be originated from a Greater Short...
A new frog species of the genus Microhyla (Anura, Microhylidae) is described from riparian mid-elevation (860 m asl) evergreen forest in Namdapha National Park, located in the eastern Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The new species can be morphologically distinguished from other congeners by a suite of characters such as adult size, do...
Arunachal Pradesh, a state of India is one of the world’s most difficult mountainous regions, extremely precipitous and highly jagged, measuring an area of about 83,500 km2. The NE India has the highest avian diversity in India, with around 900 species (Choudhury 2000; 2001a). Many of these are threatened. Of the 15 Critically Endangered species of...
Research on avifauna in India has shown that about 80% of the birds of the Indian subcontinent are found in the Indian Himalaya with the eastern Himalayas being twice species rich than the western Himalaya and most species diverse in the world. Also, the largest number of threatened avian species in Asia are also found in the Indian Himalaya. Since...
On 15 December 2013 SRK was on the seashore of Landfall Island Wildlife Sanctuary (13.617°N 93.017°E), an Important Bird Area in the Andaman island group, one of India's Endemic Bird Areas (Stattersfield et al. 1998, Islam & Rahmani 2004, BirdLife International 2013) when at 12h43 he found a small, sparrow-sized bird actively foraging in the sand;...
An ecological study of the hispid hare Caprolagus hispidus was conducted at Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, West Bengal. Hispid hare is a shy and reclusive species found to have living in the tall grassland habitats of Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in northern West Bengal, apart from Dudwa and Manas in India. Due to its habit of living in the places w...
The foraging technique and prey-handling time of the black-necked stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus) was studied in Dudhwa National Park, India, from January 1996 to June 1997. The habitat in which the storks foraged played an important role in selecting a particular technique to procure food. Black-necked storks mostly foraged using a tactile tech...
There are many subspecies in India occupying different regions and habitat types. There are seven recognized subspecies: Lepus nigricollis aryabertensis, L. n. dayanus, L. n. nigricollis, L. n. ruficaudatus, L. n. sadiya, L. n. simcoxi, and L. n. singhala (Hoffmann and Smith 2005).
Time-activity budget of the Black-necked Storks was studied from January 1995 till June 1997 in Dudwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh, India. Black-necked Storks spent nearly 46% of their time resting. Except chasing, resting and drinking, no other activity differed significantly among storks in three years. Black-necked Storks spent more time for res...
Foraging behaviour of the black-necked stork (BNS) Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus was studied in 1996 and 1997 in Dudwa National Park (DNP), Uttar Pradesh, India. The storks were observed using tactile and visual techniques to catch fish. Of the 929 fish seen caught in 2 years, 894 (96%) were caught by a tactile mode of feeding and the remaining 35 (4%...
We report the first systematic survey of wintering waders in the Indian Sunderbans, West Bengal, during Jan
and Feb 2005. One object was to search for the globally-endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper. However, none
were found. In the area surveyed, 7,758 waders were counted of 32 species. Long-distance, arctic-breeding
migrants comprised more than ha...
The effect of water level changes and wading birds' abundance on the foraging behaviour of the blacknecked stork (BNS) Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus was studied from January 1995 to June 1997 in Dudwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh. Our observations indicate that BNS territoriality increased as food levels became depleted, resulting in increased rates o...