Endangered
Nilgiri tahr
Nilgiritragus hylocrius
The Nilgiri tahr is an ungulate that is endemic to the Nilgiri Hills and the southern portion of the Western Ghats in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Appearance
The Nilgiri tahr is a stocky built goat with a short and coarse fur covering the entire body. Males are larger than females, have a darker coloured fur after maturation, and a bristly mane on the back of the neck and withers. The fur is dark yellowish brown on the above with a pale underside.
Adult males stand about 100 cm (39 in) tall at the shoulder and weigh 80 to 100 kg (180 to 220 lb). Both sexes have two curved horns, that can reach up to 40 cm (16 in) in males and 30 cm (12 in) in females.
The Nilgiri tahr was first described as Capra warryato by John Edward Gray in the 19th century.
Range and habitat
The Nilgiri tahr is endemic to the Nilgiri hills and the Anamalai Hills in the southern Western Ghats of South India. The extant range of the Nilgiri tahr extends over 400 km (250 mi) from north to south, and Eravikulam National Park in Kerala is home to the largest population. Isolated populations have been found to exist in Ponmudi Hills and Parambikulam Tiger Reserve in Kerala, and parts of Dindigul, Kanyakumari, Theni, and Tirunelveli districts in Tamil Nadu.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The peak breeding season of the Nilgiri tahrs coincide with the monsoon season from June to September, though it has been observed to breed throughout the year.
In crisis
The species is classified as endangered in the IUCN Red List. The Nilgiri tahr is mostly limited to the Nilgiri and Anamalai Hills, with the largest population occurring in the Eravikulam National Park. Key populations also occur in Mukurthi and Grass Hills National Park in Tamil Nadu, with smaller, isolated groups in Ponmudi Hills and Parambikulam in Kerala, and few districts of Tamil Nadu.
Historically widespread across the Western Ghats region, the population dropped sharply due to hunting and habitat loss, with only a few hundred left in the wild by the late 20th century. Conservation efforts have increased the population, that was recorded at about 3,122 individuals in 2015, and 2,655 individuals in 2025.
Nilgiri tahr is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Nilgiri tahr, Wikidata item Q22111959. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
