The majority of the island is a biosphere reserve, home to unique animals including the megapode bird, the edible-nest swiftlet, the Crab Eating Macaque, salt water crocodile, giant leather back turtle, Malayan box turtle, Nicobar tree shrew, reticulated python and the giant robber crab
The island was severely affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquaketsunami with many deaths, and was cut off from all contact for more than a day.
External link
Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve (http://forest.and.nic.in/frst-great%20nicobar%20biosphere%20reserve1.htm)
NICOBAR ISLANDS, a British group of twelve inhabited and seven uninhabited islands in the Bay of Bengal, between Sumatra and the Andaman Islands, to which latter they are administratively appended.
Earthquakes of great violence were recorded in 1847 and 1881 (with tidal wave), and mild shocks were experienced in December 1899.
The health of the convicts was always bad, though it improved with length of residence and the adoption of better sanitary measures; and an attempt to found a Chinese colony having failed in 1884 through mismanagement, the settlement was withdrawn in 1888.
The Nicobars are separated from the Andamans in the north by a 150-km-wide channel and are 189 km from Sumatra to the southeast.
Evergreen forests of GreatNicobar, Kamorta, and Katchall are dominated by Calophyllum soulattri, Sideroxylon longipetiolatum, Garcinia xanthochymus, Pisonia excelsa, and Mangifera sylvatica.
Wildlife exploitation threatens the edible-nest swiftlet in the Nicobars, the Nicobar megapode, crocodiles, and sea turtles (Das 1999; Sankaran 1997).
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