Topography of Bandipur National Park

The landscape at Bandipur mainly consists of medium sized hills will gentle slopes and shallow, heavily forested valleys. The exception to this general description of the park lies in the far northeastern part of the park, which is rocky and barren with thorny vegetation as the only cover. The entire park is well irrigated by four rivers, which are Kabini, Nagu, Mule-hole and Moyar. One of the main water bodies present in the park is the Kabini reservoir formed due to the construction of the Kabini dam in 1974. This dam separates Bandipur from the Nagarhole reserve. The forest cover is very dense with vegetation like Teak, Honne, Tadasalu, Mathi, Nandi, Rosewood, Sandalwood, Bamboo, Nelli, Kooli, Kadu Tega, Dindalu, Bende, Randia and Flame of the Forest making up a major portion of the variety. All these are interspersed every now and then with vast Savanah Grasslands, which are the favourite grazing grounds of the many ungulates. The overall vegetation of the park is a mixture of dry deciduous and tropical deciduous type. The weed category is mainly taken up by the plant infesting most Indian reserves, lantana.