National Animal of India – Tiger
Lord of the Indian Jungles, is the National Animal of India. The tiger is the symbol of India’s wealth of wildlife.
The magnificent tiger, Panthera tigris (Linnaeus), is a striped animal. It has a thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes.
The combination of grace, strength, agility and enormous power has earned the tiger its pride of place as the national animal of India.
Out of eight races of the species known, the Indian race, the Royal Bengal Tiger, is found throughout the country except in the north-western region and also in the neighbouring countries, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
Tigers are now getting extinct. The Government of India, under its Project Tiger programme, started a massive effort to preserve the tiger population in 1973.
Today, the tiger advances as a symbol of India’s conservation of itself its wildlife heritage.
