A sparkle of fireflies lighting up the vast expanse of the night sky is what certain nostalgic memories are made of. Despite these bioluminescent beetles dominating our collective imagination and their romanticisation in Indian culture, art and literature, how much do we really know about fireflies?

In what could be a first, a new paper published in Zootaxa compiles a comprehensive checklist of Indian fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae), documenting 92 species across four subfamilies and 27 genera. The checklist shows very high endemism and a broad but uneven distribution across India’s biogeographic zones. The researchers surveyed available literature on the species from 1881 to October 2025 and found that 60.86% of the Indian firefly fauna is endemic to the country.

The lead author, Parvez, shares that the lack of information on most firefly species in India while he was preparing for his Ph.D. is what prompted him to dig deeper into the largely unknown world of Indian fireflies. “Most of the species were not studied after the first detection,” he informs Mongabay-India.

Luciolinae is the dominant subfamily with 37 species, followed by Ototretinae with 31 species, Lampyrinae with 17 species, and Cyphonocerinae with one species. Luciolinae and Ototretinae are the most diverse subfamilies, with 11 firefly genera each. The study also lists each species with its current name, original combination, synonyms, literature citations, and distribution within India and other countries.

Most species occur in more than one Indian state, and at least 22 states plus one Union Territory have documented fireflies, although 17 species (18.47%) lack precise locality data within India. The Western Ghats has the highest occurrence of firefly species at 25.33%, followed by the North East, Gangetic Plain, Coast, and Deccan Peninsula at 22.66%, 17.33%, and 13.33%, respectively, according to the paper. The Trans-Himalayas and Himalayas each have 1.33% of fireflies in their zones, while the Islands have 2.66% of firefly species. Desert and semi-arid zones have no fireflies recorded.

The study highlights that despite their high endemism and ecological importance, basic resources such as complete surveys, updated national checklists, and conservation assessments are still largely missing for Indian fireflies. Parvez says that since this is the first checklist of Indian fireflies, it can serve as a baseline for future studies. “This research extends far beyond India, offering vital support to neighbouring countries where firefly studies remain scarce or non-existent,” Parvez says, adding that as a regional coordinator for South Asia (IUCN SSC Firefly Specialist Group) and the founder of the Fireflies Asian Association, he frequently encounters requests for firefly identification and data from across the region. “Our new checklist, identification services, and planned academic repository — backed by centres in Kerala and New Delhi — will fill these gaps, fostering collaboration and conservation throughout Asia.”

Banner image: Abscondita perplexa. Image by Parvez.

Species File: Exploring India’s biodiversity, one species at a time.

Across India’s semi-arid grasslands and scrublands, a carnivore roams and howls. An apex predator, it keeps herbivore populations in check. But as its habitats shrink and human presence grows, this carnivore is beginning to change how it lives and moves across the landscape.

The Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) has been in the news recently after a series of suspected attacks on humans in the Bahraich district, Uttar Pradesh, echoing similar incidents reported in 2024.

Understanding wolf behaviour is becoming increasingly important, as shrinking habitats bring people and wolves into closer contact and raise the risk of conflict.

The Indian wolf is a genetically distinct subspecies and possibly the oldest surviving wolf lineage. While the data on wolves in India remains insufficient, a 2022 study found that the country’s wolf population could be as small as 2,500 to 3,800 individuals. In India, it is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, providing the highest level of protection, prohibiting trade, hunting and poaching.

Researchers also note that limited research on Indian wolf populations hinders effective conservation strategies.

The loss of grasslands and scrublands poses a serious threat to the Indian wolf, leading to behavioural changes such as increased livestock predation due to declining natural prey. Wolves have also been observed suppressing their howls near human settlements and interbreeding with free-ranging dogs.

In an earlier Mongabay-India story published in 2024, Sougata Sadhukhan, an assistant professor at the Institute of Environment Education and Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune, said, “It is crucial to grasp these intricate changes, not solely to preserve wolves but also to safeguard their ecological melody and the wild symphony they contribute to.”

Read more about the Indian wolf in our stories on changing howl patterns, how Indigenous traditions shape wolf survival, and the need for region-specific wolf conservation strategies.

Banner image: The Indian wolf. Image by Vadyarupal via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Species File: Exploring India’s biodiversity, one species at a time.

King cobras are hitching rides on trains in Goa. A recent study reported repeated instances of the species being found on trains in the coastal state, drawing attention to how habitat fragmentation and linear infrastructure can bring large snakes into unexpected human-dominated areas.

The king cobra is a reptile found primarily in tropical forests and distributed widely across South and Southeast Asia. Its average length is about 10 to 13 feet – vertically, that’s about half as tall as a giraffe. The cobra is the world’s longest venomous snake. It feeds mainly on other snakes, including other cobras, which is how it earned the ‘king’ in its name. In India, the king cobra is typically found across northern, eastern and northeastern regions, including forested habitats and the Andaman Islands.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global body assessing species’ extinction risk, lists the king cobra as vulnerable to extinction in the wild. It population is declining, mainly because of habitat loss and forest degradation. In India, it is protected under Schedule II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which means hunting, capturing, or trading the species is a punishable offence.

In 2024, a landmark study, led by wildlife biologist P. Gowri Shankar, found that the king cobra is not a single species, as previously thought, but rather four genetically distinct species: Northern king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah); Sunda king cobra (Ophiophagus bungarus); Western Ghats king cobra (Ophiophagus kaalinga); Luzon king cobra (Ophiophagus salvatana). In an earlier Mongabay-India story published in 2024, Shankar said, “King cobras could potentially be five or six species. More research is needed.”

Read more about the king cobra in our stories on the newly described species, myths around king cobra venom, and the train-travelling cobras.

Banner image: Image by Tontan Travel via Flickr (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Studies have examined the role of multiple landscape types, such as open natural ecosystems, in supporting biodiversity and species conservation, with findings debunking the long-held assumption that only intensively managed protected areas have the capacity to aid and further the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity. Adding to this narrative is a new study from a semi-arid, open-canopy human-use landscape in Koppal district in North Karnataka, which finds that such ecosystems, even with intermittent human use, can provide habitats for globally threatened species and support their conservation.

Researchers used key informant interviews with pastoralists and a single-season, single-species occupancy modelling framework to examine the distribution of three species: striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), and blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra). The study revealed that hyena, sloth bear and blackbuck occupied 52%, 26% and 63% of the landscape, respectively. Indian gray wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) was found in at least 76% of the landscape.

“These landscapes in the Deccan Peninsula, with very few protected areas, are seen merely as agricultural landscapes both in the public imagination and in policies. But we found pockets of natural habitats, which we have called refugia in the paper, surrounded by agriculture that wildlife frequents. These are shared landscapes; these refugia are the reason that animals can partition spatially and temporally from humans,” says lead author of the study, Iravatee Majgaonkar.

The study refers to “hallas” as one such refugium potentially supporting blackbuck populations in the district, despite intermittent human activity. Hallas are alluvial streams, part of the dendritic water drainage pattern in this region, which dry post-monsoon. Similarly, rocky outcrops surrounded by agricultural farms are another refugium supporting megafauna such as bears and leopards, as well as smaller carnivores, says Majgaonkar.

If these refugia vanish and the landscape undergoes conversion, Majgaonkar does not rule out the possibility of human–animal conflicts increasing. Another crucial aspect that supports conservation in these multi-use landscapes, she says, is the livelihood opportunities they provide pastoral communities. “People may get displaced, they may have to travel further with their livestock. There are also people who have quit these livelihoods because these areas have now reduced in size,” she adds.

The study challenges the narrative that semi-arid open ecosystems are “wastelands” by highlighting the conservation potential of agro-pastoral landscapes. Misclassification of biodiversity-rich landscapes can lead to their mismanagement, affecting the land-sharing and coexistence potential of these regions, as well as the survival of many species.

Banner image: A striped hyena at a rocky outcrop. Image by Indrajeet Ghorpade.

Microplastics have been found in three lakes in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, with concentrations increasing in more urbanised areas, a new study has found. High altitude lakes are especially vulnerable to the accumulation of microplastics because they react quickly to changes in the watershed.

Three high altitude lakes in Kumaon were chosen for the study – Nainital lake, Garudtal lake, and Bhimtal lake. The researchers looked not only at levels of pollution in the lakes, but also whether land use types had a role to play. Of the three, Garudtal was the most remote, with no permanent residential areas around the lake. By contrast, Nainital had a watershed population of 26,859 people, and Bhimtal 8,413 people.

A total of 24 samples were collected across all three lakes, which were filtered using a 90 micrometre sieve. The extent of microplastic pollution was characterised using three parameters: Contamination Factor (CF), which quantifies the level of contamination associated with each polymer, Pollution Load Index (PLI), which provides an integrated measure of microplastic pollution loads across all sampling sites, and Polymer Hazard Index (PHI), which assesses the potential ecological impacts of microplastic pollution based on each polymer abundance and its hazard score.

Concentrations ranged from 200 to 1,300 items per metre cubed in Nainital Lake, 60 to 960 items per metre cubed in Bhimtal Lake, and 40 to 320 items per metre cubed in Garudtal lake. The “result reveals that the microplastic concentration of these lakes varies from each other mainly due to the population density (residential area) and anthropogenic activities (number of tourists visiting the lake, boating, and roads),” the study says.

An overwhelming majority of microplastics found were fibres, which “have demonstrated an increased impact on biota when they are ingested compared to other plastic shapes,” it adds. Some fibres may have come from the washing of synthetic textiles, which can release up to 700,000 fibres into water bodies. Other sources, particularly around the sparsely populated Garudtal lake, could have come from tire and road wear particles which leaked into the lake.

The hazard level of the lakes as per the PLI indicated a preliminary level of contamination. However, PHI values exceed 1,000 in most samples, indicating a severe risk of ecological harm due to the high concentration of polyester fibres in the samples.

“Including microplastic monitoring into national environmental programs, such as the National Plan for Plastic Waste Management and National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) could strengthen India’s effort to mitigation strategies in the Himalayan region,” says the study.

Banner image: Nainital lake. Image by Neharajpoot via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Climate change added an average of 30 extra days of harmful heat annually to India’s coffee-growing regions between 2021 and 2025, according to new data from Climate Central, an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report on climate change and its impacts.

India recorded about 118 days per year (between 2021 and 2025) above 30°C, the temperature threshold beyond which the heat harms the coffee plants. Roughly 30 of those days were driven by climate change, the analysis shows. It arrived at this by modelling the number of days each year that would have recorded maximum temperatures below 30°C in a world without carbon pollution but were pushed over the threshold due to carbon pollution, representing the coffee-harming days attributable to climate change. 

India accounts for 3.5% of global coffee production. State-level data highlights the impacts in key coffee regions of the country. Kerala experienced an annual average of 65 additional extreme-heat days linked to climate change. Tamil Nadu saw 43 extra days each year, while Karnataka, India’s largest coffee-producing state, recorded 32 additional harmful-heat days annually. Parts of the northeast also showed rising heat stress, with Tripura recording 47 extra days and Telangana 44.

Temperatures above 30°C reduce yields, affect bean quality and increase plant stress, particularly for arabica coffee, which is more heat-sensitive than robusta. India grows both varieties, though primarily robusta, largely across the Western Ghats.

Farmers say these changes are already visible. Sohan Shetty, who manages biodiversity-rich shaded organic coffee farms in the Western Ghats, said, “We are seeing two significant changes: increased temperatures and erratic rainfall. We see a reduction in soil moisture, even in shade grown coffee. This creates stress for coffee plants, which in turn triggers blossoms with erratic rains. So, it’s quite common to see planters halting harvesting because a part of their plants has blossomed. We have had our coffee fruit drying up in the plants faster because of increased temperatures.”

In Kodagu, Karnataka, growers are tracking the shifts closely. Akshay Dashrath, Co-Founder and Grower at the South India Coffee Company, said, “At Mooleh Manay, our farm, climate change isn’t something we’re predicting, it’s something we’re measuring every day. Our on-ground sensors show longer stretches of high daytime temperatures, warmer nights, and faster soil moisture loss than what coffee here has historically depended on.”

The India findings reflect a broader global pattern. Climate Central analysed temperature data from 2021 to 2025 across 25 major coffee-producing countries, which together account for 97% of global production. All 25 experienced additional days of coffee-harming heat because of climate change. On average, countries saw about 47 extra harmful-heat days annually. The top five producers — Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia and Ethiopia — experienced an average of 57 additional harmful-heat days per year. 

Researchers warn that rising heat, shifting rainfall and shrinking suitable land could reshape coffee cultivation in the coming decades.

Banner image: Coffee plant in Tamil Nadu. Image by Mirthyu via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).