Hall of Asian Mammals The Hall of Asian Mammals focuses on large
mammals from India, Myanmar, and Thailand. Animals featured in
the hall’s dozen habitat dioramas include the water buffalo,
leopard, hoolock gibbon, and rhinoceros. Also represented are
the banting, black buck, chinkara, chital or axis deer, guar,
sambar, swamp deer, wild dog, and thamin or Eld’s deer. Like the
Akeley Hall of African Mammals, this hall features a centerpiece
grouping of freestanding elephants, encouraging comparisons
between the two types—the Asian elephant being generally smaller
than the African elephant and having smaller ears and a higher
forehead. Many of the animals represented in this hall are
threatened by poaching and loss of habitat. In fact, in the
1990s, two Asian mammals, the Siberian tiger and the giant
panda, were placed in the case featuring endangered species in
the Hall of Biodiversity. Asian elephants used to live in areas
stretching from Iraq to southern China, where some still live
wild. The habitats these f