Animals

The Asiatic Elephant is found in great numbers in the Royal Bardia National Park in western Nepal. This park is on a traditional elephant migratory route from the western Terai to Corbett National Park in India.The one horned Rhinoceros can be found in the parks along the Terai. There are very few buffalo left in the wild (unlide parts of Africa) although there is a small herd near the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in the eastern Terai. The tiger is an endangered species...

Birds

Nepal boasts 848 recorded species of birds. An ardent bird watcher can travel the length and breadth of Nepal doing little else but bird watching. Birding is possible everywhere in Nepal from the hot plains in the south, the Kathmandu Valley in the mid hills, to the mountainous regions of the north.The Kathmandu Valley has four major bird watching areas and one can start on the banks of the Bagmati and Manohra rivers...

Butterflies

Butterflies have been studied in Nepal for over 150 years, with much of the original study and collection done by the British, including one or two British Residents (i.e. British Consults of the day). After 1950 the Japanese became involved in collection through scientific expeditions, and this resulted later in the establishment by Tribhuvan University of the Natural History Museum at Swayambhu in 1974.The record books state that Nepal has 11 out of the 15 families of butterflies in the world, or over 500 species...

Flora

In the years from 1950 onwards more than 200 new species of plants were discovered in Nepal. Prior to this the gathering and cataloguing was the prerogative of plant specialists such as Buchanan Hamilton, Wallich, Hooker and Burkill. In the 1920s two Nepalese collectors working for the British Museum amassed new plants for botanical science. Once Nepal opened its frontiers explorers and scientists carried out organized expeditions in the field of botany.Prior to the 1950s Nepal's knowledge of its plants was limited mainly to local herbalists..

Fossils

To the geological world. Shaligram is one of the coiled chambered fossil shells of the extinct Cepalopod Mullusks that came into existence as a part of the initial emergence of the Himalayan heights from the depths of the Tethys-sea millions of years ago. To the Nepalese however, teh Shaligram features very prominently in their religious lives because of its embodiment of Vishnu, one of the major manifestations in the Hindu Trinity. Puranas like Scanda, Padam and Baraha written around 2,000 years ago, give an exhustive account of Shaligram, which are divided into a wide variety of colour, shape and size. They can be found in the north of the Nilgiri mountain range right up to Damodar Kunda, and also in the waters of the Kaligandaki river right up to Tribeni in Dolal Ghat. However, the most popular belt is on the banks of the kaligandaki river at Jimsom where the pilgrims who...

Medical plants

Medical plants, Ayurveda and the Himalayas are intertwined in a very special manner and Nepal, right in the centre of the Himalayan region, has special significance. Medical plants are used in traditional rural remedies, ayurveda medicines, homoeopathic medicines, and many of them are also included in allopathic pharmacopeas.The resource strained health services of Nepal, further complicated by an ever unabated population growth, is said to serve only 15% of the 20 million population of the country giving only this small group access to modern health facilities. A large section of the population, mainly the rural people, still depend on primitive care such as traditional Ayurveda or herbal practitioners. The use of locally available..

Orchids

Nowhere does nature manifest herself so vividly in all her playfulness as she does in the world of orchids. In their flwering pattern orchids are capable of mimicking a part of man as well as the animal world, at times, making us laugh. monkey Face, swan Neck, Little Bull, and The velvet bee are among the few names they have been given for their peculiar looks.In ancient Rome, Theophrastus, a student of Plato was intriqued by the sight of a plant with a pair of roots. 'Orchis' was the name he gave them, the Greek word for testicles.The world abounds with some 500 to 600 genera and some 20,000 to 35,000 names, the largest of all plant families, and out of this, Nepal has 57 genera (27 Terrestrials and 30 Epiphytic) with a few lithophytes. Wide spread into different ecological zones, from the foot hills of the himalayas to the plains in the Terai, the orchid-world in Nepal is immensely interesting for...

Rhododendron

During spring March to may Rhododendron blooms can be seen in all the hilly regions of Nepal above 1,200 m altitude. More specifically, the mid mountain vertical belt between 2,000 and 4,000 m serves as the wild preserve of the rhododendron, or GURANS and GHIMAL, the two words used in Nepal.There are four major areas for Rhododendron treks-1. Milke Danda- Jaljale Himal, a transverse mountain range which separates the two river systems of the Tamur and the Arun2. Upper Tamur River valley3. Makalu Barun National park and conservation area and4. closer to Kathmandu the langtang valley inside langtang National park...

Trees

Nepal has a variety of beautiful trees, of which the banyan and the peepal are associated with Hindu and Buddhist holy sites, frequently found beside temples and shrines. It is considered that the original tree under which maya Devi give birth to her son gautama siddharth was not a peepul tree, but probably a sal it may have survived into the 6th or 7th century A.D.The Eucalyptus were introduced into Nepal from Australia in the 19th century, and in Kathmandu can be smelt as you walk along a street after rain has fallen. The spruce, an evergreen, coniferous pine tree which took its name from prussia where it traditionally came from the juniper another evergreen is a crucial ingredient in the flavoring of gin, and in medicines it is used as...

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