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Mammal

Northwestern Blackbuck

Antilope cervicapra rajputanae

हिन्दी: काला हिरन

Northwestern Blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra rajputanae) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Chhapar, Rajasthan · Resized

Northwestern Blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra rajputanae) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Chhapar, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Antilope cervicapra rajputanae
Hindi name
काला हिरन
Family
Bovidae, order Artiodactyla
Group
Mammal

Spiral horns, speed and a swagger across the dusty plains.

  • Spot it Dark males with white bellies and twisted horns; pale fawn females.
  • Home Open grasslands and thorn scrub of north-west India.
  • Food web Grazes on grasses; wolves and jackals prey on it.
  • Why it matters Grazing keeps grasslands open and its dung returns nutrients to the soil; it is key prey for wolves and jackals.

Read more: Blackbuck on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 22 verified records of this species on iNaturalist in 2010, in Chhapar.[20]

Sources

  1. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  2. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  3. Wikidata (Hindi labels for species) (database). Open data, used for Hindi common names.
  4. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  5. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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