Nilgai

nobody@ipernity.com (Designldg) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:15:36 +0000

Designldg has posted a doc:

This is a close-up of a Nilgai I saw on the road from Varanasi to Allahabad.
More explanations are on the next image.

Neelgai

nobody@ipernity.com (Designldg) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:55:40 +0000

Designldg has posted a doc:

Neelgai on the road from Varanasi (Benaras) to Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.

The Nilgai or Neelgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) is an antelope which is one of the most commonly seen wild animals of northern India and eastern Pakistan. It appears ox-like and is also known as a Blue cow.

A blue bull is called a Nil gai or Nilgai in India, literally from nil meaning blue and gai meaning a bovine animal (though a female bovine such as a cow is called gabhih in formal Sanskrit).
In fact the Nilgai was known as the Nilghor (nil = blue , ghor = horse) during the rule of Aurangzeb (Mughal Era).
Nevertheless the local belief, that the Nilgai is a cow and hence sacred, has protected it against hunting.

The main predators of the blue bulls are tigers (Panthera tigris) and lions (Panthera leo).

Nilgai are diurnal and live in grasslands and woodlands where they eat grasses, leaves, buds, and fruit.

In the wild, females and young males gather in herds of about fifteen individuals while older males are often solitary.
Individual male or female nilgais may be encountered in cultivated or semi-urban areas.
They avoid dense forest and prefer the plains and low hills with shrubs.
Blue cows are usually found in their favoured areas of scrub jungle (acacia forests) grazing upon succulent kader grass.
They are not averse to crossing marshlands.

A neelgai can survive for days without water, but they live close to waterholes.
The deserts earlier limited their range, but the extension of irrigation canals and proliferation of tube-wells in the Thar desert have helped them colonise the desert districts of Jodhpur, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner and Ganganagar.

The species is declared by the IUCN as being at low risk of extinction.

Docs from Designldg, tagged "nilgai"

Nilgai

Neelgai