Most
of the Animals indigenous to Ceylon are represented at the Dehiwala Zoo the National Parks where they mag be seen in
their free state “Animals of the Ruhunu National Park by Mr. C.S Norris is a
most valuable guide to those interested in the animals of Ceylon. The latest
book on this subject is my personal Ark by Aubreg weinman, the first
Superintendent of the Dehiwala Zoo.
The
elephant (aliya) is the king of the Dehiwala Zoo it belongs to the Sumatra
& not the India species. The female
never has tusks the male only rarely. The full-grown Ceylon elephant rarely
exceeds ten feet in height & may weigh as much as three tons. Its life span is roughly that of a human
being.
In
their wild state elephants live in herds numbering up to twenty. During the
heat of the day they retire to the shade of the forests. They live almost
exclusively on vegetarian diet the foliage of trees, fruits & grass. Old bulls are liable to periodical attacks of
excitement which is called “must” Their sense of smell & hearing is well
developed. Tame elephants are employed for transporting timber & rocks,
where there are no roads for vehicular traffic, and in religious processions such
as the annual Kandy Perahara.
An
attractive animal in the Ceylon jungles is the panther leopard (Kotiya) often miscalled a cheetah. The overall length of the male is about
2.13m. It has a golden brown colour on the upper parts with black resells, the
under parts being pure white. He lives mainly on smaller animals. The leopard
has acute hearing & eyesight but a poor sense of smell.
The
Ceylon sloth bear (Valaha) is a large long furred animal with shuffling gait.
The colouring is mainly black. The female is generally smaller that the male.
It is dangerous much attack with out provocation. It lives on insects, grubs;
fruit, flower, roofs & honey occasionally flesh.
The
Ceylon jungles have a variety of monkeys. The smallest is a macaque or (rilawa)
brown with tuft of hair on his face. It
is gregarious & lives on wild fruits, berries, and young shoots flowers,
together with insects, grub & larvae.
The young are carried dinging to their mother’s stomach. The grey languor (hali-vandura) is larger
than the rilawa has a general greenish brown colour with the under parts paler.
The purple faced monkey’s or vandura’s are larger that their gregarious cousins
of the plains. The grey ape of the
Northern & Eastern provices (Maha Bandura) is the largest of the monkey
tribe in Ceylon.
The
wild buffalo is more massive & darker in colour than the common village
type. All day long wild buffaloes immerse themselves or wallow in the mud. So
they suffer greatly during severe droughts. They move into forests glades
during the night of their feet, returning to the water holes at dawn. The
Ceylon Jackat (Nariya) has a dog like appearance & is reddish brown in
colour. It is the scavenger of the
Jungles utters ghostly howls at night.
Two
of the most attractive denizens’ of their Ceylon forests are the elk the
spotted deer. The elk also called the sambhur (gona) is the largest deer in
Ceylon. It is a noble beast the male
stag carrying at antlers which are three-tined about 66 cm high. It lives off
the foliage of trees & bushes & sometimes crops of grass around
water-holes. The spotted deer (thithmuwa) moved about the kow-country in herds
& present a graceful sight. The colouring is rufous-brown on the upper
parts, generally spotted with smallish white spots. A darken strip runs from
the back of the head down the neck & back to the tail. The sunder parts are
white only the stags have antlerswhich mag attain a length of 91.44cm. The
spotted deer are generally found in “park-corntg” There is a smaller edition
known as the barking deer & an even smaller one, the mouse deer. The wild
pig or wild beer (wal-ura) is a pachyderm, dark blackish grey in colour. It prefers swampy areas around. Tanks &
lagoons & lives on roofs & tubers, fallen fruits, grub & carrion
vicious if cornered it is very fleet if allowed to run for it.
The
mongoose, sometimes known as the Ceylon badger (mugatiya) may be a ruddy or
stripe-necked variety. It feeds mainly on small mammals, birds, lizards, insect
& egg. It has a reputation for cool courage in its encounter with snakes.
The
porcupine (ittava) has a vey distinctive appearance, because of the long black
& white quills with which its back is clad. It is noctornab by habit. It
feeds mainly on roots bark, fruit and bulbs or yams. When attacked if can
inflict wounds by raising its quills.
The Ceylon black- napped hare
(hawa)is light grayish brown, flecked with black it is do be found in most
parts of the island in nocturnal in its habits.
The
iguana (talagoya) a species of lizard attains a length of 1.5m or more and is dark
blackish grey. It can be distingushied from the water lizard (kabaragoya) a
still larger species which is darker black covered with yellow marking. The
talagoya constitute the main diet of the veddahs, mixed descendants of the
aborigines. They feed mainly on small
vertebrates, insects & grubs, being especially fond of termites.
The
kabaragoya is a protected animal as itissaid to kill snakes & also the
small craps which bore holes in the “Nigaras” or partitions of paddy
fields. It is amphibious & fearless
of man, capable of in flicting a severe wound by a blow from it tail.
The
crocodile (Kimbula) can be 6.00m or more in length. There are two varieties:
the larger, frequenting the estuaries & rivers, the smaller living in tanks
& fresh water lagoons. The estuarine crocodile is a man-eaten & it is
unwise to bathe in rivers near the coastal belt. Both species lag eggs for
propagating their young. Eye-sight & hearing are well-developed & the
powers of scent are good.
