Central Deccan Plateau Dry Deciduous Forests Some of the larger species mentioned here are rare, as is the threatened Indian giant squirrel ("Ratufa indica"). The 300 species of birds include the globally threatened Jerdon's courser ("Rhinoptilus bitorquatus"), which was rediscovered in 1986 having been thought extinct for nearly a hundred years. About 80 percent of the natural habitat in the ecoregion has been lost. Several blocks of habitat larger than 5,000 km remain. Fifteen protected areas cover almost 3% of the ecoregion's area, with Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve as the largest. Central Deccan Plateau Dry Deciduous Forests The Central Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests southern India, containing
Plateau metaphorically described as the "roof of the world", which is still being formed by the collisions of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The Tibetan plateau covers approximately , at about above sea level. The plateau is sufficiently high enough to reverse the Hadley cell convection cycles and to drive the monsoons of India towards the south. The second-highest plateau is the Deosai Plateau of the Deosai National Park (also known as "Deoasai Plains") at an average elevation of . It is located in the Astore and Skardu districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, in northern Pakistan. Deosai means 'the land of giants'.