Order: Perissodactyla

Family: Equidae

 

Size: up to 200-250 cm in length.

Weight: - about 200-260 kg.

 

Key Features: The general colour of its coat varies with the seasons, appearing light brown over the cold winter and reddish brown during the hot summer. The belly, buttocks and muzzle are white, and most Asiatic wild asses, with the exception of the Mongolian wild ass, have a broad black dorsal stripe, bordered with white.

 

Breeding: Breeding is seasonal, the gestation period in this species is 11 months, and most births occur from April to September. Females with young tend to form groups of up to five females.

 

Diet: eats grasses when available, but will browse on shrubs and trees at other times or in drier habitats. It has also been seen feeding on seed pods and breaking up woody vegetation with its hooves to get at more succulent herbs growing at the base of woody plants.

 

Habitat: inhabits flat steppe, semi-desert or desert and is always found within 30 km of a source of water.

 

Habits: It is one of the fastest of Indian animals, with speeds clocked at about 70 – 80 km. per hour and can easily outrun a jeep. Stallions live either solitarily, or in small groups of twos and threes while family herds remain large.

 

Conservation Status: Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

Distribution in the GoK: reported along the coast of Gulf of Kachchh.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

IUCN Red List. http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/7951/0

 

Nowak, R.M. (1991) Walker’s Mammals of the World. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.

 

Macdonald, D.W. (2006) The Encyclopedia of Mammals. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

Feh, C., Shah, N., Rowen, M., Reading, R. and Goyal, S.P. (2002) Status and Action Plan for the Asiatic Wild Ass (Equus hemionus). In: Moehlman, P.D. (Ed.) Equids: Zebras, Asses, and Horses: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SCC Equid Specialist Group, IUCN, Gland Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. Available at: 
http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2002-043.pdf

 

Photo Courtesy

Sumeet Moghe, Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons