The term 

megadiverse country refers to any one of a group of nations

that harbour the majority of Earth's species and high numbers
of endemic species. Conservation International identified 17
megadiverse countries in 1998. Many of them are located in, or partially
in,  tropical or   subtropical regions.
The identified Megadiverse Countries are:
United States of America, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,
Venezuela, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, South
Africa, Madagascar, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines,
Papua New Guinea, China, and Australia.
 The Megadiversity Country concept is based on four premises:

1. The biodiversity of each and every nation is critically important to that nation’s survival, and
must be a fundamental component of any national or regional development strategy.

2. Biodiversity is by no means evenly distributed on our planet, and some countries, especially in
the tropics, harbour far greater concentrations of biodiversity than others.

3. Some of the most species rich and biodiverse nations also have ecosystems that are under
the most severe threat;

4. To achieve maximum impact with limited resources, conservation efforts must concentrate
heavily (but not exclusively) on those countries richest in diversity and endemism and most
severely threatened; resources invested in them for conservation should be roughly proportional
to their overall contribution to global biodiversity.
•The main criteria for megadiverse countries is endemism at
the level of species, genera and families.

• A megadiverse country must have at least 5,000 species of

endemic plants and must border marine ecosystems.
The great variety of ecological conditions prevailing in India,
tropical location, climate and physical features all aid in
supporting an enormous diversity of wildlife, including:

• hot desert forms, like wild ass

• the cold desert forms, like the Tibetan antelope:
•animals of open scrubland, like the black buck
• grassy swamps, like the rhinoceros
•animals of the deciduous forests like the wild gaur
•tropical rainforests, like the lion-tailed macaque.
India lies at the confluence of Ethiopian, Palaearctic, and Indo-Malayan faunas and
possesses some interesting components.

The chinkara, the hyena, and the rates represent the Ethiopian element;

the lynx, wolf, hangul represent the Palaearctic;

the Chinese by red panda and the musk-deer;

the Indo-Malayan by the hoolock gibbon, the goat-antelope, and the mouse deer.
15,000 species of flowering plants, 53,430 species of insects; 5050 species of mollusks,
6,500 species of other invertebrates; 2,546 species of fishes; 1228 species of birds, 446
species of reptiles, 372 species of mammals and 204 species of amphibians have been
identified. India’s biodiversity is estimated to be over 45,000 plant species representing
about 7% of the world’s flora and India stands tenth in 25 most plant-rich countries of
the world. Its variety of animal life represents 6.5 per cent of world’s fauna.
Being one of the oldest and largest agriculture societies, India has at least 166 species of crop
plants and 320 species of wild relatives of cultivated crops. The vegetation ranges from
xerophytic in Rajasthan, evergreen in the North-East and the Ghat areas, mangroves of coastal
regions, conifers of the hills and the dry deciduous forests of central India to alpine pastures in
the high reaches of the Himalaya. The forests India have been classified into 16 types and 251
subtypes by climatic and edaphic conditions.
It has great marine diversity due to its 7500km long coastline. The
near shore coastal waters of India are extremely rich fishing grounds.
India is one of the 12 mega-diversity countries in the world.

It host about 7% of global flora(47,000 plant species) and

6.5% of fauna (81,000 species of animal).

Some of the biodiversity criteria are as follows:

Endemism: India shows a good number of endemic species. About 62% of amphibians and
50% of lizards are endemic to India.

Western ghats are the site of maximum endemism.

Centre of origin: A large number of species are known to have originated in India. Nearly
5000 species of flowering plants had their origin in India.