Pakkamalai

Pakkamalai is a steep-sided plateau rising above 500 metres in Villupuram district, some 45 km south-west of Gingee. It is both a forest reserve, covering 22.38 km², and a sacred forest: a shrine to the goddess Durga sits on one of its peaks, and a Perumal (Vishnu) temple stands partway up.

Its dry forest blends plants typical of the coastal dry evergreen forest to the east with those of the dry deciduous forest of the Eastern Ghats to the west, and the lowlands around it are thorn scrub. Several endemic species grow here, among them the rare tree Hubera senjiana, known only from Pakkamalai's rocky forest edges. The grizzled giant squirrel lives here too, its most easterly known population, and in 2019 the critically endangered peacock parachute spider, or Gooty tarantula, was found living here.