Correct Option: A

A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a significant reservoir of biodiversity that is under threat from humans. More like rolling hills than snow-covered mountains, the Western Ghats - stretching some 1,600 km from the north of Mumbai to the southern tip of India - are a biodiversity hotspot that contains a large proportion of the country’s plant and animal species; many of which are only found here and nowhere else in the world. In the northern part of the range, about one-third of the plants, almost half the reptiles, and more than three-fourths of the amphibians known in India are found in this narrow strip of rainforest just off the west coast. The forests in the southwestern Ghats are even richer, hosting the country’s largest population of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) as well as Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris Tigris), lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus), sloth bears (Ursus ursinus), Nilgiri tahrs (Hemitragus hylocrius) and much more.