From tiny mushrooms and clams to snakes, frogs and fish, the scientists and researchers of India who seldom stop looking for the next big find, discovered 596 news species of plants and animals in 2018, according to the latest report by Botanical Survey of India (BSI) and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). With these […]
Bees Can Connect Symbols To Numbers Just Like Humans
If you show a first grader the symbols 1,2,3,4 he or she would quite easily be able to tell you that these represent the numbers one, two, three and four. Interestingly, if you show a honeybee the same symbols, the bee too might give a knowing buzz of recognition and understand that those symbols represent […]
That Elusive Breath of Clean Air
If someone was to mark the cities of the world with the dirtiest air, most of India would be covered in grey. From Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, to Patna, Lucknow and national capital Delhi, no city in India, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic plains, is entirely free from the grip of the dense cloud of death hovering […]
What is Going Wrong With the Forest Rights Act?
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act or simply the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was considered a landmark piece of legislation passed in India in 2006. It meant to correct the historical injustice against forest dwellers done since the colonial era and in independent India. Sadly, 13 year on, the FRA has been […]
In Pics: An Elephant’s Long Walk to Freedom
It was morning of 18th May when Deepa Mathur a professor at Government Polytechnic College in Kota was taking a morning safari at the famed Kabini region of Nagarhole National Park when she spotted a bull elephant. The elephant was trying to crossover to another part of the forest when he got stuck in the […]
Say No to Firefly Festival, Period
Have you ever noticed insects disappearing from your surrounding over the last few years? Try and recall the last time you saw a hawk moth, dragonfly, or butterfly around your house? Fact is, with the expanding city limits and other anthropogenic activities, we are losing wildlife habitats, green spaces, and wetlands in an unusual way. […]
The Last Time We Experienced This Much Carbon dioxide Was Never
On Saturday (May 11), the levels of carbon dioxide in our planet reached 415 parts per million (ppm), as measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. That is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than anytime in human history. And in the last 800,000 years. As climate expert Peter Gleick aptly […]
After a 100 Years a New Vine Snake has been Found from India
Ten years ago, two scientists working at the Simlipal Biosphere Reserve in Odisha saw a snake crossing their path. They recognised it as a vine snake but one that they had not seen before in these parts. Later that year, they again saw a male on a Lantana bush confirming that the snake was indeed […]
India Gets A New Species of Venomous Pit Viper Snake
When Rohan Pandit and Wangchu Phiang accidentally stumbled upon a brown snake on a steep slope of a forest in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh in India, little did they know that the reptile had never been formally described before. Now, in a new paper, researchers have described this snake as a new-to-science species of […]
It’s Confirmed. Tiger Spotted in Gujarat After 27 Years
6 days ago there were reasons to believe that there is a wild tiger roaming in Gujarat after a school teacher spotted one in Mahisagar district and captured a photo with his phone. The forest officials placed camera traps and began scouting for the tiger based on the claim. And now, a camera trap […]
Four New Horned Frogs Discovered In India
Horned Frogs are named so because of their pointy upper eyebrows but for centuries, there has been a confusion regarding their classification. In North East India for over 150 years a single species – the Jerdon’s white lipped horned frog, represented the entire family, but Dr Stephen Mahony, a National Museum (UK) scientist knew there […]