Thar Desert

A subtropical arid ecoregion of about 264,000 square kilometers straddling northwestern India and eastern Pakistan, centered on Rajasthan with extensions into Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab in India and Sindh and Punjab in Pakistan. Sandy plains and low eroded hills receive only 100 to 300 millimeters of rain a year, concentrated in the southwest monsoon. The chinkara gazelle, Indian fox, desert monitor lizard, the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard and more than 100 other bird species depend on sparse cover of thorny shrubs, grasses and endemic trees such as Prosopis cineraria; over half of the desert's mammals and roughly two-thirds of its reptiles show affinities with Saharan desert fauna. Wind erosion, desertification and water scarcity threaten the ecosystem, of which about 41,800 square kilometers carries protected status.