“It is just like a human being,” said Mahipatsinh Sodha, a farmer from Gujarat’s Kachchh district, about guggal, a native plant species in the region, which the International Union for…
Extinction is the termination of all members of a species and it occurs because of environmental forces, overexploitation or evolutionary changes. What can fossils tell us about extinction? They provide…
South Asia has a rich diversity of bulbuls, and a new study has traced this bulbul diversity all the way to the Sundaland region of Southeast Asia, in the islands…
Researchers recently described 12 new gecko species from the Western Ghats, 10 of which are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. Some of them got quirky names, after…
Since March 2020, scientists from the Institute of Natural History Education and Research (INHER), Pune have described seven new species of scorpions from the Western Ghats – six from the…
The state of Gujarat is an ecological marvel that houses extremely rare, endemic wildlife like the lions, hyenas, wolves, wild ass and birds like the great Indian bustard and the…
Alpine meadows, also known as bugyals, are a valuable part of the Himalayan ecosystem. These meadows start appearing at the height of 3000 meters above sea level, where the treeline…
Found among the lush forests of Kerala and Tamil Nadu with a minor distribution in southern Karnataka and Goa, the Petinomys fuscocapillus, or the Travancore flying squirrel, is among the…
It was a bright afternoon after two days of heavy rain in Kerala and Professor P. Manimohan’s two Ph.D. students K. P. Deepna Latha and K. N. Anil Raj were…
A new species of small burrowing frog has been discovered from the Chota Nagpur plateau in Jharkhand. Scientists have named it ‘Magadha Burrowing Frog,’ (Sphaerotheca magadha) after the ancient kingdom of…
It was September 7, barely a month after the floods of 2018 had wrecked large parts of Kerala. Though life was far from normal in Thrissur's coastal Kodungalloor, 48-year-old Jaison…
A new study has, for the first time, thrown light on when and from where black pepper (Piper nigrum) had come to India. The species arrived into India from Southeast…
For about a year now, P. O. Nameer and Kiran Thomas have been walking the slopes of Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala looking for a special kind of squirrel. Called…
Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata), a commonly seen plant in Kerala, is locally known as “Communist Pacha (green)”, as it spread all over the state within a short span of time just like Communism…
A blood-red, snake-like creature with an elongated body and sightless black spots for eyes, was spotted burrowing into the moist soil of a rainforest in Meghalaya. Amphibian biologist Rachunliu G.…
Most households in South Asia would have at some point given shelter to the common house gecko Hemidactylus frenatus. This pale colourless reptile inhabiting the corners of our ceilings, has…
The Western Ghats have revealed two new genera of dragon lizards from the family Agamidae -- Monilesauras and Microauris. Using a combination of extensive field surveys, detailed taxonomic analyses and genetic…
On a wet rainy day in 2014, Kiran Marathe was busy looking for loud, clamorous cicadas hiding in the bushes, in Verlem district in South Goa. Marathe, a young 20-something…
Is time running out for the 260-odd endangered sangai deer which have their only home Manipur? The sangai or the Indian Eld’s deer (Rucervus eldii eldii) resides as an isolated single…
Consider the common black rat Rattus rattus. Although native to southern India, the black rat, also called a ship rat because of its habit of boarding ships, has been scoring…
