Leaf Art by Various Artists

Leaf art by various artists! Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Prints and merchandise of the comic are available for orders within India here, and for orders abroad here. 

Lilac Silverline Butterfly and Hesarghatta

The rare Lilac Silverline butterfly, a resident of Hesarghatta grasslands in Bangalore comments on the government's decision to ignore citizens' plea for giving Hesarghatta a protected status and instead earmark it for developing a film city. Comic from my column with The Hindu. 

Neem, Ants and the Olive Ridley Turtle

Researchers Anuja Vartak and Sumedha Korgaonkar have figured out a novel, eco-friendly way to protect Olive Ridley Turtle nests from ant infestations: neem-based sprays! Comic from my column with Sunday Mid-Day. Read more about their work here. 

New Discoveries in 2020

Trust biologists to make even 2020 a better year! Here are just a few of the many discoveries made this year in India, congratulating the biologists who unearthed them. Cartoon from my RoundGlass Sustain column. (If you wish to go through all the species discovered in India in 2020, email me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com). Happy 2021 , dear readers! Here's hoping for many more such breakthroughs in '21.

Wildlife Quarantine Webinar Recommendations

Some wildlife skill-sharing webinar recommendations for you during quarantine, from my column with Sunday Mid-Day. 

Vote for the Weaver Ant

Weaver ants are highly social, arboreal ants renowned for weaving nests from the silk produced by their larvae. From my column with Sunday Mid-Day.

Ask Me Anything with the Pangolin

A Pangolin does an Instagram 'Ask me Anything' session in my column with Sunday Mid-day 

Buy prints of this comic from my webstore here. For orders within India, mail me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com.

12 Green Resolution Suggestions from Wild Animals

If they can do it, so can we, right? Which ones are you taking up this year?

The series appears in my space with Nature in Focus today.

In case you forget your green resolutions down the year, you can purchase a poster on my webstore here, to keep reminding you of the list! (Also try to indulge less in consumerism this year, please, other than purchasing Green Humour prints and merchandise!)

The Different Types of Ants in an Ant Colony

What are the different types of ants you'll meet in an ant colony? Find out in this comic on the division of labour in ant colonies from my page with the Turkish children's magazine, Arastirmaci Cocuk Merkezi. Prints available on my webstore here.

Ant cartoons for Arastirmaci Cocuk Merkezi

In this month's issue of the Turkish children's magazine, Arastirmaci Cocuk Merkezi, we speak about ants! Here are some cartoons on the different aspects of life as an ant- diet, adaptations, and species diversity. The cartoons appear in Turkish, translated by my talented designer-editor, Ayse Dincer.

By the way, Biber Salkasi is a REALLY hot chilli-pepper paste from Turkey!

The Rufous Woodpecker and the Crematogaster Ant

I had first met a Rufous Woodpecker on a trip to BR Hills, Karnataka, two years back. The bird was  curiously inspecting a Crematogaster ant nest and I was immediately just as curious to know more about this behaviour. As I happened to read more, I came to know that the Rufous Woodpecker and the Crematogaster ants have one of the most unique symbioses in nature going on with each other! Here's my theory of why this relationship came into being. The comic appeared in the November '14 issue of Saevus magazine.

There's also a caricature I've done to proclaim my love for this bird! Several aspects of the breeding behaviour of the Rufous Woodpecker seem to be unknown, such as whether or not the male too participates in nesting. I was not sure about this myself, but I have still depicted both sexes to illustrate sexual dimorphism (the red cheek patch is a male characteristic). 

Prints available on my webstore (the comic here, and the caricature here). For orders within India, e-mail me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com.

The Worker Ant

An ant colony typically consists of winged males called drones, one or more queens, and workers. While the job of the males is to simply mate and die, and that of the queen is to propagate; it is the workers that do the dirty jobs and keep the colony running- much like your boss sitting in his cabin playing Solitaire all day and you slogging on that stupid Powerpoint. Worker ants are all sterile females who perform the tasks we normally see ants do, like hunting, carrying food, building the nest and protecting it from predators, taking care of the young and even fighting invaders- a job for the larger workers equipped with stronger mandibles, referred to as the soldiers.

Happy International Workers' Day!

A Present for the Pangolin

Pangolins lack teeth in their jaws and are hence not able to chew. Evolution has compensated for thisloss by giving them extremely long tongues. They use their strong claws to break anthills and termite mounds open and can probe deep into these structures for ants and grubs. Some species such as the Tree Pangolin use their prehensile tails to hang from branches and hunt arboreal insects.

So, what gifts did you give/get this Christmas?


This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.