Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent by Pranay Lal

Author:Pranay Lal
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789385990366
Publisher: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Published: 2016-12-06T18:30:00+00:00

About 35 million years ago, life in the undergrowth saw a proliferation of several small browsing mammals. Watching them were the earliest carnivores which were about the size of foxes. Having adapted to life in and around trees and feeding on insects, they quickly developed a taste for flesh and their cousins who had stayed vegetarian were among their earliest prey.

An area stretching from Kurukshtera in Haryana till the outskirts of Chandigarh forms the base of the Siwalik Hills (Siwalik: the land of Shiva) which are a disjointed range of low hills. The Siwalik is the youngest part of Himalaya that buckled and folded during the last major thrust of continental compression. These plains witnessed an explosion of diverse and giant mammals between 30 and 8 million years ago.

For more than 15 million years—from 65 to 50 million years ago—mammals did not take to grazing, a niche that had remained unoccupied ever since large dinosaur grazers had died out. The trees of the rainforests provided ample fruit and foliage, and mammals did not have enough reason to develop a taste for grass which had evolved with a number of features to discourage grazing.

No one quite knows exactly when it happened but eventually a few tree-dwelling mammals that lived off fruit, seeds and nuts, came down from the trees and over time took a liking to grass and began to live on the ground. Climatic fluctuations were helping grasses spread during prolonged dry spells and a few ground-dwelling mammals probably found succulent grasses an inviting option, especially when fruit and foliage from trees became scarce. These new grazing mammals grew larger than their arboreal cousins, and over the next 3 million years, grazing turned from a fashion to a craze, and grazing mammals grew even larger. Around 44 million years ago, there would have been as many pig-sized herbivores on the ground as there were fruit and insect-eating mammals on trees. Tree dwellers remained small but gradually developed a fondness for insects and the occasional lizard that visited the trees. This diet was a rich and easy source of protein and some mammals, more than others, acquired a taste for it.

About 40 million years ago, the earliest true carnivores began to evolve from tree-dwelling mammals. They were slender, agile and in the earliest stage still tree-dwelling, and probably looked a lot like the modern linsang, an elegant hunter of the night. When more and more tree dwellers began adapting to life on the ground, the linsang-like carnivores followed suit. The first herbivores had an early start and grew so large that many would not have felt threatened by the small carnivores. Most carnivores of this period were about the size and shape of modern-day civets and toddy cats. These small hunters retained their arboreal sure-footedness while gaining stealth and agility on the ground. The first true cats evolved from here, and with their sharp teeth and retractable claws they became adept at hunting on trees, in the undergrowth and in the open savannah.

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