India GOAnimals in Varanasi
Ganges river dolphin
India's National Aquatic Animal since 2009, and Schedule I protected. The first countrywide survey, published in 2025 under Project Dolphin, put the total at 6,327 river dolphins across eight states, the largest share of them in Uttar Pradesh.
Platanista gangetica
Chital (spotted deer)
The Buddha gave his first sermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath, and the two deer flanking a wheel became the emblem of that moment: carved on stupas, painted on monastery walls and used on the Sarnath site itself.
Axis axis
Rhesus macaque
Mark Twain described the monkeys at the Durga temple in Following the Equator (1897): being sacred, they “make themselves very free, and scramble around wherever they please.”
Macaca mulatta
Indian narrow-headed softshell turtle
Softshell turtles were released into this stretch of the Ganga in large numbers in the 1980s as a river-cleaning measure. How much the scheme achieved is still argued about, and the turtles that remain are protected.
Chitra indica
The full catalogue, hidden spots and districts on the map, plus “nearby” mode.
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