Mantises on Valentine's Day

A very happy Valentine's Day in advance, or 'head-day' if you're a male mantis!

Cartoon for The Hindu Sunday Magazine. 

Serotine Bats and Sex

A pair of Serotine bats recently made news after being recorded on a church camera making love (you read that right), albeit ‘non-conventionally’, making them the first known wild mammals to indulge in non-penetrative fertilization! I know you all might claim to be such ‘wild mammals’ too, but that discussion is for another day.

Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain. Read more about the church footage from Castenray, Netherlands, leading to a scientific report on the Serotine bats here.

Calotes Courtship

Common Garden Lizards or Common Calotes, also called bloodsuckers because of the male's blood-red throat in his breeding attire, are among the most common and most fascinating reptiles to watch in urban areas in India. Happy World Lizard Day! Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain. 

Behind the Scenes of Florican Courtship

Behind the scenes of Lesser Florican courtship. Male floricans must perform elaborate high jumps to woo their mates! Unfortunately, the species has recently been uplisted on the IUCN as critically endangered, because of the destruction of its grassland habitat. Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain. Read more about the threats that floricans face in this cartoon. 

The Water Strider and Bollywood

Bollywood can often get quite real in nature, specially when you're a water strider. Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Antechinus Sex Addiction

A short story of sex and the Antechinus, an Australian mouse-like marsupial. Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Bubble Nest Frogs

The tadpole of a bubble-nesting bush frog from the Western Ghats has a message for you. Comic from my column with The Hindu.

The Small Tree Frog

Small Tree Frogs, much like a few other tree-dwelling frogs, make nests for their eggs by rolling leaves into tubes! These tubes are strategically located over the surface of a stream or a pool so that the tadpoles enter the water on emerging. Now imagine what an irregular monsoon could do to a breeding cycle as fragile as this one. Like many other frogs endemic to the Western Ghats, this species too is endangered because of habitat loss and climate change.

An Amphibian Week special comic from my column with Saevus Magazine.  

The Courtship Dance of the Western Parotia

Endemic to the Vogelkop mountains of West Papua, the Western Parotia is one of the world's most renowned dancers. But just being a great dancer takes you nowhere in the bird world, if you don't get your housekeeping right! Comic from my column with RoundGlass Sustain. Happy Valentine's Day!

Sumatran Rhinos and Captive Breeding

Inspired by a recent true incident in the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia's Way Kambas National Park, in which a female rhino refused to mate with her mate after he was paired with a second female to boost the population of Sumatran Rhinos. Comic from my column with The Hindu.

Meet the Zitting Cisticola

Meet the Zitting Cisticola, a rather enigmatic grassland bird which has a very special Salim Ali association. Comic from my column with Saevus. (For prints, email me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com).

Sea Turtle Nesting

Why sea turtle mothers return to the same nesting grounds year after year. Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

The Nicobar Megapode

I can barely contain my excitement for my maiden visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the Andaman Literature Festival, so here's a comic about the Nicobar Megapode from my column with Sunday Mid-Day. Megapodes are habitual composters. Are you?

A more detailed account of the Nicobar Megapode's nesting behaviour appears in my book Bird Business. 

House Sparrow Home Decor

Home decor by the House Sparrow. From my column with RoundGlass Sustain. Inspired by the antics of the sparrow couple from my box that leaves no available resource untapped to build a home!

Choices: Birds of Paradise

Seriously, how do female Birds of Paradise say no to THAT?! From my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Dancing advice from the Indian Dancing Frog

Dancing frogs live along fast-flowing streams in the Western Ghats where they use 'dance moves' to woo their mates, by extending their hind legs and presenting the flashy webs to the ladies! From my column with RoundGlass Sustain.

Cuckoo Chartbusters for your Monsoon Playlist

It's monsoon and cuckoo compositions are topping all music charts! Which one is your favourite? (Mine has to be the Grey-bellied!)

Comic from my column with Pune Mirror.

The Phalarope Dad

This Fathers' Day, meet a dad with a difference- the male Phalarope! Phalaropes are shorebirds known for two very unusual characteristics: one, feeding by creating whirlpools and raising food from the bottom of the water, and two, their polyandrous mating system! Females mate with several males and it is the fathers that are assigned all nesting duties!

The comic appears in my column with Sunday Mid-Day. Happy Fathers' Day to all dads tame and wild.

Feminist Hornbill

Feminist hornbill- from my column with RoundGlass Sustain. Read more about hornbills here.

Herpetology Reversed

Delighted to announce the relaunching of my weekly column with Roundglass Sustain, which has revamped, restarted and is all set to croak, I mean roar! You can now read new cartoons and comics from Green Humour every week on the Roundglass Sustain website.