Namdapha National Park

Namdapha National Park is located in Changlang district, Arunachal Pradesh and located between the Dapha bum range of the Mishmi Hills and the Patkai range. It is established in 1983.

• A biodiversity hotspot in the Eastern Himalayas.
• Fourth largest national park in India.
• Originally declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1972, then a national park in 1983 and became a tiger reserve under Project Tiger scheme in the same year.
• Area of total 1,985 km2 including a core area of 1,808 km2 and a surrounding buffer zone of 177 km2.

  

Flora

• Sapria himalayana and Balanophora are root parasites related to Rafflesia recorded from the area.
• Vegetation such as Moist deciduous, temperate broadleaved, coniferous forest types and alpine vegetation.

Fauna

• Mammals :-
  • Namdapha flying squirrel (Biswamoyopterus biswasi) was first collected in the park and described which is endemic to the park and critically endangered. It was last recorded in 1981 in a single valley within the park.
  • Four pantherine species are found in the park: leopard (Panthera pardus), snow leopard (P. uncia), tiger (P. tigris) and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa).
  • Other predators present in the protected area are dhole, Malayan sun bear, Indian wolf and Asiatic black bear.
  • Smaller carnivores include red panda, red fox, yellow-throated marten, Eurasian otter, Oriental small-clawed otter, spotted linsang, binturong, Asian palm civet, small Indian civet, large Indian civet etc.
  • Large herbivores are represented by Indian elephant, wild boar, musk deer, Indian muntjac, hog deer, sambar, gaur, goral, mainland serow, takin and bharal.
  • Non-human primates present include stump-tailed macaque, slow loris, hoolock gibbon, capped langur, Assamese macaque and rhesus macaque.
• Birds :-
  • The park has about 425 bird species.
  • Several species of rare wren-babblers have been recorded in Namdapha.
  • There are five species of hornbills recorded from the area.
  • The snowy throated babbler is a rare species of babbler found only in the Patkai and Mishmi Hills and nearby areas in Northern Myanmar, is found in Namdapha.
  • Other bird groups include laughing thrushes, parrotbills, fulvettas, shrike babblers and scimitar babblers.
  • Other rare, restricted range or globally endangered species include the rufous-necked hornbill, green cochoa, purple cochoa, beautiful nuthatch, Ward’s trogon, ruddy kingfisher, blue-eared kingfisher, white-tailed fish eagle, Eurasian hobby, pied falconet etc.

The first mid-winter waterfowl census in Namdapha was conducted in 1994 when species such as the white-bellied heron, a critically endangered bird, was recorded for the first time.

• Butterflies and moths :-
  • The region is very rich in Lepidoptera species.
  • As per the observations taken during the National Camp organised in October 2014 by Bombay Natural History Society, a lot of rare species of butterflies were seen. These include the koh-i-noor, naga treebrown, red caliph, cruiser, wizard, fluffy tit, East Himalayan purple emperor.
  • Four-ringed butterfly (Ypthima cantliei) –
    • Species of Satyrinae butterfly.
    • Considered a rich genus of the family Nymphalidae which has some 6,000 species of butterflies.
    • Of the 35 Ypthima species recorded in India, 23 have been reported from the northeast.
    • The highest Ypthima diversity is in China, particularly in the Yunnan and Sichuan. The diversity is also vast in Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar.
    • The species has dull brown-grey wings with three yellow-ringed single eye spots (ocelli) on its hind wing and a large bi-pupilled apical ocellus obscurely ringed with yellow on the forewing above.
    • The butterfly was recorded in 2018 from the Namdapha National Park by Roshan Upadhaya, a member of the Arunachal Pradesh Police, Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi of the BNHS, and Renu Gogoi and Rezina Ahmed of the Guwahati-based Cotton University’s Department of Zoology.