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Indian Gaur
The Indian bison — the largest wild cattle on earth, a muscular forest giant with a ridged back and pale "stockings".
How to spot it
The biggest wild cattle in the world — a massive, muscular animal, glossy blackish-brown, with a high muscular ridge along the shoulders and, distinctively, pale tan lower legs that look like white socks. Both sexes carry curved horns.
Where it lives
The forests and forest edges of India — especially the Western Ghats, central India and the northeast — and on into Southeast Asia. It likes hilly, wooded country with grassy clearings to graze.
What it eats
A herbivore that grazes on grasses and also browses leaves, shoots and bark, feeding in the cool hours and coming out to forest clearings and edges at dawn and dusk.
Behaviour & life
Lives in herds led by an older female, with big bulls often solitary. For all its bulk it is shy and usually retiring — but a gaur is immensely strong, and even tigers take one on only with care.
In India
Protected under Schedule I and classed as Vulnerable. It has done well in some southern reserves but is threatened by habitat loss and disease caught from domestic cattle; Nagarhole and Bandipur are strongholds.
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