Diego the Galapagos Giant Tortoise

Diego, the legendary Galapagos Giant Tortoise who is credited with single-handedly pulling his species back from extinction thanks to his libido, has retired at the age of 100, and has returned to his native island of Espanol from the Galapagos National Park's breeding programme at Santa Cruz. Comic from my Gocomics page.

New Discoveries of 2019

2019 was not exactly a good year for conservation in India, but India's conservation biologists have still made several breakthroughs. Here are just some of the newly discovered species of fauna and flora from 2019. And much like the Impatiens balsam, I too am already impatient about the discoveries that 2020 will bring!

Comic from my column with Pune Mirror today.

Manouria Impressa

Meet Manouria impressa, or the Impressed Tortoise, earlier known only from Southeast Asia, that has recently been recorded from Arunachal Pradesh in India! Spotted in a chance rescue operation in the Kamle district of Arunachal, this tortoise takes India's inladn turtle count to 29! Read more here. 

Greenland Shark 410 Year Challenge

A Greenland Shark, the longest living vertebrate, takes the 410 year challenge!

Wildlife of Seychelles

In an exciting assignment commissioned by the Save our Seas Foundation working in The Seychelles, I created a habitat illustration of St. Joseph Atoll and D'Arros Island. I got to draw and learn about many creatures I had never heard of before, and the illustration was among my work detailed work on marine fauna. Click on the illustrations for a larger view.

Copyrights to all images here belong to the Save our Seas Foundation. While the habitat illustration is to be published in the Save our Seas Magazine and posters, each of the illustrated elements will be used in merchandise.

The Star Tortoise Trade

The Indian Star Tortoise is one of the most trafficked animals in the illegal pet trade. Thanks to exotic pet owners, the wild populations of the Indian Star Tortoise, like many other tortoises and turtles, has crashed dramatically.

The comic appears in my column with Sunday Mid-Day today.

RIP, Lonesome George

Lonesome George, the sole survivor of the extinct Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni , a sub-species of the Galapagos Giant Tortoise native to Ecuador's Pinta Island; died in captivity on 24th June 2012, thus wiping out his entire race. This sub-species was hunted rampantly by natives for meat, and conservation efforts were made too late. It seems that the 'prevention-better-than-cure' idea is quite difficult for us to learn.

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