The Blue Duke: Sikkim's New State Butterfly

Please join me and the Red Panda (Sikkim's State Animal) in welcoming Sikkim's new Chogyal, err, I mean Duke! The new official state butterfly of this beautiful and biodiverse Himalayan state: the Blue Duke butterfly! Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine. 

Indian Mammals that are Fossil Fuels

Some Indian mammals that are fossil fuels. Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine, NOT available as an NFT. 

Himalayan Wildlife Celebrates the Rhododendron Bloom

Come March, and red Rhododendron flowers can be seen painting the Himalayas red their vibrance. Here are some Himalayan animals celebrating the bloom, and wishing my readers a happy Holi. Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain. 

Gangtok Urban Biodiversity Map

Presenting my third project with ICLEI: an illustrated urban biodiversity map of Gangtok, the capital of the Himalayan state of Sikkim. Situated in a once pristine landscape that is now subject to rapid change and degradation, Gangtok still boasts of an incredible range of fauna and flora, specially in its greenest pockets (such as forests around the Himalayan Zoological Park, the Governor's Bungalow, and Hanuman Tok to name a few). Its orchid diversity makes it next to none among Indian capital cities. But although it is surrounded by protected areas and sanctuaries like Fambonglho, Kyongnodsla and the Kanchenjunga National park, Gangtok today struggles to strike an equilibrium between rapid urbanization and nature conservation. 

The map pays tribute to Thangka art, an art style that has fascinated me for years, and is almost synonymous with art itself in Sikkim. The Directorate of Handloom and Handicraft at Gangtok has a Thangka art school, where I spent some time learning a few tips and tricks from both art teachers and students before working on this map.

Thanks once again to ICLEI for commissioning me for the project. I also extend my gratitude to the prolific Sikkim forester and my mentor Mrs. Usha Lachungpa (who features in the map!), and my friends Minla and Karmachoden for all their help with my orientation of Sikkim and Gangtok, and without whom this illustration would be impossible to execute.  

The illustration can be downloaded in high resolution on the Interactbio ICLEI website here.

Some snippets from the map are below (click on the images for a larger view):

Red Panda Species Split

The Red Panda is now two different species (Himalayan and Chinese), thanks to geographical isolation by the Yarlang Tsangpo river, and a new molecular study! My gratitude to my Sikkimese friend Minla Lachungpa, a wildlife veterinarian with the Gangtok Zoo, for the Nepali translation, and my Chinese friend and journalist Yuli Yang for the Chinese translation :) Comic from my column with RoundGlass Sustain

Ask me Anything with Red Panda

A Red Panda does an Instagram AMA in my column with Saevus magazine this month! Nicknamed the Firefox, the Red Panda is Sikkim's State Animal.

Filmmaker Gunjan Menon's award-winning documentary 'The Firefox Guardian' is about a female forest guard in Nepal dedicated to saving the Red Panda. Prints of the comic are available on my webstore here. For orders within India, email me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com.

Wild Bhutan

I'm just back from my second trip to Bhutan and could not resist the temptation of drawing wildlife from this wonderland again! Here's a collage of Bhutan's wildlife- 22 of the myriad of wild fauna found in the Cloud Kingdom.

Prints of the artwork are available as a wide range of apparel and merchandise on my webstore here. 

For orders within India, please view the range of products available below-

A1 poster (594 x 841mm)- Rs. 1800 each

A2 Poster (419 x 594mm)- Rs. 1200 each

A3 Poster - Rs. 500 for the first copy and Rs. 200 for the second copy onwards 

Tshirt (S,M,L,XL)- Rs. 1300

Coffee Mug (Compilations)- Rs. 850

Personal Diary (Hard Cover, A5, 150 pages)-  Rs. 800

(email your orders to rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com, mentioning a postal address and contact number for delivery. Payments are accepted via NEFT or PayTM)

Note that this list is far from accurate or complete, but does cover some of the country's most prominent fauna, such as its national animal, the Golden Takin; its national bird, the Common Raven; the Black-necked Crane, an important bird in Bhutanese folklore, and so on. For a more comprehensive list and distribution of the wildlife of Bhutan, please go through my 2016 project with WWF Bhutan, The Wildlife Map of Bhutan.

Wildlife Caricatures for WWF India

Swallowtail butterflies of India- compilation for WWF India t-shirts and merchandise.

Swallowtail butterflies of India- compilation for WWF India t-shirts and merchandise.

Himalayan Mammals- compilation for WWF India t-shirts and merchandise.

Himalayan Mammals- compilation for WWF India t-shirts and merchandise.

Woodpeckers of India- compilation for WWF India t-shirts and merchandise.

Woodpeckers of India- compilation for WWF India t-shirts and merchandise.

I collaborated with WWF India last year for creating some caricature compilations for their apparel and merchandise. You'll find these soon on their store. The animals are selected from landscapes and projects that WWF India is working on, in different regions of the country.

Community Reserve for Red Pandas in Arunachal

The Lhaghyal, an old Monpa monastery in West Arunachal Pradesh recently declared the forested areas around it as a community reserve to conserve the Red Panda! At a time when the rest of India is consumed by an unplanned development rage, this comes across as both a breather, and a much-needed lesson.

Here's a toast to my favourite Indian state, Arunachal Pradesh, from my column with Mid-Day today.

Bugun Liocichla- Cartoon Workshop at Eaglenest

While India was grappling with a near financial crisis and the USA was busy making a fool out of itself, some of us were having a blast with school kids from Arunachal Pradesh at Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary! The 4th annual nature camp organized by the Shergaon Forest Division, and designed by my friends Dr. Nandini Velho and Dr. Umesh Srinivasan brought us together. Umesh conducted several presentations and film screenings, while Chandini Chhabra from Leaps and Bounds engaged the kids in some delightful and interactive lessons in biology and ecology. Satem Longchar, an Oxford alumnus and wildlife biologist from Nagaland held talks on the mammals of Eaglenest and microscopy, while Lhopsang Tashi from NERIS enlightened us all about medicinal plants. As we speak, Gerard Martin from 'The Gerry Martin Project' is with the kids conducting activities and lessons on herpetology! 

I too conducted a wildlife cartooning workshop with the kids, creating cartoon characters out of Red Pandas and Bugun Liocichlas (a critically endangered bird species known only from Eaglenest WLS), and took them through the process of creating a comic strip with a conservation message. Here's the strip I drew with the kids. Not surprisingly, many of them came up with their own strips by the end of the lesson!

A big thanks to Nandini, Umesh and DFO Mr. Millo Tasserfor having us there!

The first rains

Monsoons are generally not considered a birding season, but in India, it does fill birders with much anticipation and excitement. The arrival of the Pied Cuckoo in India coincides with that of the monsoon winds and hence it is revered as the harbinger of rains. A birdwatcher's delight, this bird is an absolute thrill to track in the monsoons. It is a brood parasite that nests around this time of the year, parasitizing the nests of babblers. Pairs can often be seen courting each other, whistling a loud but melodious "peeu-peeu". Hairy caterpillars are the Pied Cuckoo's favourite food, and it is quite a sight to watch the bird tackle one, so I've drawn a caricature of the Pied Cuckoo with its breakfast-

The comic appeared in The Hindu Business Line this weekend and is available as an A3/A4 print, and so is the caricature. Mail me at rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com to book your prints or purchase your prints online here.

Also have a look at Migrant Watch's Pied Cuckoo Campaign that attempts to engage birdwatchers to study the migration patterns of the Pied Cuckoo.