Western Ghats are the mountainous faulted and eroded edge of the Deccan Plateau.
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Western Ghats are the mountainous faulted and eroded edge of the Deccan Plateau.
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Western Ghats extend from the Satpura Range in the north, stretching from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu.
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The Western Ghats meet the Eastern Ghats at the Nilgiri mountains in northwestern Tamil Nadu.
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The major river systems originating in the Western Ghats are the Godavari, Kaveri, Krishna, Thamiraparani and Tungabhadra rivers.
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The majority of streams draining the Western Ghats join these rivers, and carry a large volume of water during the monsoon months.
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The Periyar, Bharathappuzha, Pamba, Netravati, Sharavathi, Kali, Mandovi and Zuari rivers flow westwards towards the Western Ghats, draining into the Arabian Sea, and are fast-moving, owing to the steeper gradient.
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The forest in the Western Ghats has been severely fragmented due to human activities, especially clear-felling for tea, coffee, and teak plantations from 1860 to 1950.
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Western Ghats are home to thousands of animal species including at least 325 globally threatened species.
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The Western Ghats ecoregion has the largest Indian elephant population in the wild with an estimated 11, 000 individuals across eight distinct populations.
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The Western Ghats are home to 174 species of odonates, including 69 endemics.
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Seasonal rainfall patterns of the Western Ghats necessitate a period of dormancy for its land snails, resulting in their high abundance and diversity including at least 258 species of gastropods from 57 genera and 24 families.
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Various plant species are endemic to the Western Ghats, including the palm tree Bentinckia condapanna and the flower Strobilanthes kunthiana.
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