Indrella ampulla colour morphs

A new study shows that the Palghat Gap in southern India is the barrier separating the various colour morphs of the endemic gastropod Indrella ampulla. The article by Arathi Menon on Mongabay makes for excellent coverage of this study, which yet again proves the biogeographical mettle of the Palghat Gap!

Read another Green Humour comic on genetic isolation resulting from gaps in the Western Ghats here.

Cartoon for Roundglass Sustain.

(For readers from outside of India: the word ‘Mallu’ is a colloquial term referring to Malayali people from the southern state of Kerala).

New Species of 2023

Newly discovered species from 2023 congratulate India's biologists for all the discoveries and rediscoveries made this year! Let's hope that our biologists will BRB with new ground-breaking science in 2024! Comic for Roundglass Sustain.

Armageddon Reedtail

Meet the newest Indian damselfly discovered from Kerala's Western Ghats, named the 'Armageddon Reedtail' after the Ecological Armageddon. Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine. A huge congratulations to Pankaj Koparde and team for the discovery!

Sholas and the Sholakili

The Sholas, montane grassland-forests of the Western Ghats are an endangered ecosystem. The Sholakili tells you why. Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine. 

Vizhinjam Port Protests

In her Mongabay piece, Supriya Vohra outlines how loss of marine biodiversity and livelihoods has been accelerating because of the Adani - Kerala Govt. Vizhinjam International Seaport. Since then, protests from the fishing community have intensified, and even painted a religious colour by the Kerala government. Cartoon from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine. 

Miss Kerala Fish

This beauty pageant winner from the Western Ghats is an endangered species, thanks to the aquarium trade, invasive species and habitat loss. Meet the Miss Kerala Fish in my column with The Hindu Weekend.

Bindu the Whale Shark

Bindu the Whale Shark: mascot and poster done for the Wildlife Trust of India in 2018. Happy Whale Shark Day!

Portuguese Man o War meets Vasco da Gama

So who's the first Portuguese on Indian soil? Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain. 

(The Portuguese Man O' War is a siphonophore, closely related to jellyfish, found commonly on Indian shores, and called so because of its resemblance to Portuguese warships known as man o' wars)

Elephant Death in Kerala

Cartoons on the recent death of an elephant in Kerala by ingesting a fruit stuffed with a cracker caused massive outrage across India.

Kochi- an Urban Biodiversity Map

An urban biodiversity map of Kochi commissioned by ICLEI South Asia. Among India's busiest port cities, Kochi has a wide variety of green spaces both within and around it, from marshes and paddy fields, to estuaries, beaches, mangroves and hills. Mangalavanam, a mangrove forest in the heart of the city hosts a huge population f the Indian Flying Fox, while its estuaries are home to the Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin and the State Fish of Kerala, the Pearl Spot. Kochi's wetlands are the wintering grounds of several species of migratory waterfowl, and its hill forests host many insects and birds endemic to southern India. Some close-ups from the illustration are below:

Thanks to Mr. Alex Jose of ICLEI for his knowledge and inputs on Kochi, and to ICEI for commissioning me for this project!

Mysticellus

Meet Mysticellus, a new genus of frogs that was discovered earlier this year in Wayanad, Kerala. What makes the discovery remarkable is that a completely new genus has been found, and not just a species! Behind the discovery are anurologists Sonali Garg and SD Biju. Comic from my column with RoundGlass Sustain.

Read more about the discovery in my friend Aathira Perinchery's article in The Hindu.

2019 West Coast Floods

The Western coast of India is flooding yet again. Urging everyone to make relevant donations to the respective state relief funds.

Indirana Tadpoles and Climate Change

We've all been hearing and reading about species going extinct because of climate change. But imagine losing an entire genus!

Last month on a field trip to Kerala's Athirapilly Falls in the Western Ghats, I stumbled upon something truly bizarre. An entire rockly hill slope, wet with networks of rainwater streams, was full of tiny tadpoles, that were climbing the rock! Upon closer inspection I found that these tadpoles had very long tails, and visibly well-developed hind legs. The adult frogs too weren't far, taking cover wherever foliage offered, constantly emitting partridge-like quacks, and keeping a watch on their egg clusters (and tadpoles?). Anurologist pals Gururaja Kv and Madhushri Mudke were quick to not only identify the frog species for me (Indirana yereda, the Genus being endemic to the Western Ghats), but also to explain the behaviour and lifestyle of these frogs, which eventually became this comic strip.

The comic appears in my column with PuneMirror.in today. For those interested in finding out what these tadpoles and frogs actually look like, I've added some photographs clicked by me here:

Indirana yereda tadpoles

Indirana yereda adult (about the size of a human little finger)