Several Asian countries, including India, have set ambitious targets to restore tens of millions of hectares of degraded land by 2030. But, according to new research, these plans could be…
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…
Marine biologist Charles Anderson saw swarms of globe skimmer dragonflies landing at the Maldives during autumn, before they took off towards East Africa. Back in 2009, these observations led Anderson…
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…
Native to the Indian subcontinent, Russell’s vipers are highly venomous snakes and the major cause of mortalities and permanent disabilities each year in South Asia. Now, a new study, which…
For the past two decades, the catch and trade of seahorses has been banned in India. However, a new study reveals that 13 million seahorses are estimated to have been…
Humans are testing the limits of most species’ survival, with their planet-wide changes. As urbanisation, deforestation, loss of wildlife, and human-wildlife conflicts continue to spiral up, there is a need…
It was a hot summer morning and Samrat Sengupta, a masters’ student of science at the Guwahati University, was watching birds through his binoculars in a reserve forest in north-eastern…
Ethologist and evolutionary ecologist, Raghavendra Gadagkar has been researching animal behavior for the last 25 years using simple, inexpensive, and exquisitely thought-out experiments. In his latest book, Experiments in Animal…
In India, dholes, or Asiatic wild dogs, are mostly found in the Western Ghats, Central India and Northeast India. There are smaller populations in the Eastern Ghats and the Western…
Using data collected over the last three decades, a team of scientists from IIT Kharagpur and other collaborating institutes has created a digital soil map for India. The digitally accessible…
German herpetologist Frank Glaw has helped describe over 200 new species from Madagascar. But the most recent one is special: Brookesia nana is a chameleon that may be the smallest reptile…
During the monsoon season of 2011, H.M. Yeshwanth, a doctoral student studying insects, browsed the bushes of the thorny Acacia catechu plant in Hesaraghatta near Bengaluru, Karnataka and came across…
Of the insect world’s many architects, the termites are undoubtedly the reigning monarchs. The earthen mounds that these tiny insects construct out of soil, water and their own saliva, are…
As COVID-19 cases rapidly rise in India (more than 4.4 million cases now), the annual scourge of dengue fever is also slowly raising its head. India is labelled as ‘hyper-endemic’,…
Some butterflies go to any lengths to make ant-friends. Their caterpillars have evolved button-like spots on their backs to spout sugary rewards to attract ants; a special gland in their…
Wild tigers are hard to study. That's why India's tiger census uses camera traps to take photographs of tigers as they walk unsuspectingly by; geneticists pick up tiger poop or…
Conservation biologists are coming to terms with a new normal in the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic with disrupted food supply for animals, postponed fieldwork and training, and the possibility…
Around three months have passed since the city of Wuhan in China was put under lockdown. Since then, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has swept the globe, with over two…
India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences is considering increasing its budgetary allocation for monsoon research, following a Parliamentary Committee report that finds its present allocation “low.” The Committee in its report…
