MAMMALS 

Bangladesh is a unique country for mammals but doesn't have a single endemic species nor even an endemic subspecies, though having a wide variety from the tiny pipistrelle to the gigantic elephant. Here the zoogeographic position is such that it has become a meeting ground for the mammals of the Indian and Indo-Malayan subregion of the Indo-Malayan realm. The whole of the Indian subcontinent supports some 500 or so species of mammals. Bangladesh share more than one-fourth of this varied Indian mammal fauna.

Bangladesh represents the eastern most limits of the langur, five stripped palm squirrel, blackbuck, nilgai, cheetah etc., which are commonly occurring (or occurred) in peninsular India. On the other hand, it is the western most limit for many Indo-Malayan fauna, such as mainland serow, pig-tailed macaque, stump-tail macaque, crab-eating macaque, capped langur, hoolock gibbon, banteng, Javan rhinoceros, crab-eating mongoose, hog-badger and binturong.

The uniqueness of Bangladeshi mammals is marred by the bleak prospect of their survival, as we have already lost some ten per cent or so. An almost equal quantity is threatened with extinction, mainly due to the loss of forest cover and habitat destruction; due to the adverse effects of man made impoundment's within the country and in the neighboring countries, and of course due to the unethical practice of hunting and poaching.