Consider the following fauna:

Consider the following fauna:

1. Lion-tailed Macaque

2. Malabar Civet

3. Sambar Deer

How many of the above are generally nocturnal or most active after sunset?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(d) None

4. Ans: a

Explanation:

Nocturnal animals become more active at night to hunt, mate, or avoid heat and predators.

Nocturnal animals have evolved physical traits that let them to be active in the dark .

The eyes get bigger and the pupils widen.
Animals like owls and large cats have specialized hearing to hunt at night.
Many nocturnal animals have a good sense of smell and often communicate with scent marking.

Sambar Deer

Of the seven species of deer found in South Asia, the sambar is the largest.
Only males have antlers, which in adults, have three tines on each side, and are shed annually.
Males grow spike antlers in their second year, and their second set of antlers usually has small brow tines. Mature stags have six-tine antlers, and irregularities are rare.
The sambar is distributed from the Philippine Islands in the east, through Indonesia, southern China, Indo-China, Thailand and Myanmar, to India in the west.
It is distributed throughout India, except in the arid and desert regions of western India. The sambar has been introduced in several countries outside its geographical range.
The sambar utilises areas with moderate-to-steep slopes. The sambar subsists on a wider variety of plants than any other ungulate in India and this si largely due to the varied habitats it uses.
The diet can be broadly classified into browse (eating leaves) and grass.
The basic social unit of the sambar is the maternal family group: adult female, calf and yearling.
Sambar deer are more active during the night than day, nocturnal movement , this movement varies with seasons and is greater in spring, summer and autumn.
Crepuscular activity was found to be high in all seasons. Maximum movement occur in the morning between 4 am to 8 am and in the evening between 6pm to 10pm.

Lion-tailed macaque

Lion-tailed macaque is the the most primitive of all extant Asian macaques.
The lion-tailed m macaque is considered direct descendant of Macaca paleoindica, the first macaque to reach Asia, nearly five million years ago.
The lion-tailed macaque is endemic to the tropical rainforest (also called wet evergreen forest)of the Western Ghats in peninsular India.
They are a diurnal and arboreal species, and active during day time.
The lion-tailed macaque feeds on fruits, seeds , nectar as well as on invertebrates and small vertebrates so largely it is omnivores.
Like other macaques lion-tailed macaque live in social groups. Most of the groups in undisturbed forests have only one adult male, with 6 or 7 adult females and one subadult male, the remaining being immatures.

Malabar Civet

It is considered mostly nocturnal.
It is one of the rarest and most elusive mammals in the world.
In the Western Ghats alone there are four species of civets, namely the common palm civet, brown palm civet, the small Indian civet and Malabar civet.

Hence, option a is correct.